* September 26, 1988: The novel is published in the UK.
* October 5, 1988: India bans the novel's importation.
* November 21, 1988: Grand sheik of Egypt's Al-Azhar calls on Islamic organizations in Britain to take legal action to prevent the novel's distribution
* November 24, 1988: The novel is banned in South Africa and Pakistan; bans follow within weeks in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Qatar.
* December 1988-January 1989: British Muslims hold book burnings in Bolton and Bradford; Islamic Defense Council demands that Penguin Books apologise, withdraw the novel, destroy any extant copies, and never reprint it.
* February 12, 1989: Six people are killed and 100 injured during anti-Rushdie protests in Islamabad, Pakistan.
* February 13, 1989: One person is killed and 60 injured in anti-Rushdie riots in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India[citation needed].
* February 14, 1989: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issues a fatwa calling on all Muslims to execute all those involved in the publication of the novel; the 15 Khordad Foundation, an Iranian religious foundation or bonyad, offers a monetary reward for the murder of Rushdie.
* February 16, 1989: Rushdie enters the protection programme of the British government and issues a statement regretting the offence the novel has caused; Khomeini responds by reiterating: "It is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has, his life and his wealth, to send [Rushdie] to hell."
* February 17, 1989: Iranian leader Ali Khamenei says Rushdie could be pardoned if he apologises.[4]
* February 18, 1989: Rushdie apologizes just as Khamenei has suggested; initially, Irna (the official Iranian news agency) says Rushdie's statement "is generally seen as sufficient enough to warrant his pardon".[5]
* February 22, 1989: The novel is published in the U.S.A.; major bookstore chains Barnes and Noble and Waldenbooks, under threat, remove the novel from one-third of the nation's bookstores.
* February 24, 1989: Iranian businessman offers a $3 million bounty for the death of Rushdie.
* February 24, 1989: Twelve people die in anti-Rushdie rioting in Bombay, Maharashtra, India[citation needed].
* February 28, 1989: Two bookstores in Berkeley, USA, are firebombed for selling the novel.
* March 7, 1989: Britain breaks diplomatic relations with Iran.
* March 1989: The Organization of the Islamic Conference calls on its 46 member governments to prohibit the novel. The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar sets the punishment for possession of the book as three years in prison and a fine of $2,500; in Malaysia, three years in prison and a fine of $7,400; in Indonesia, a month in prison or a fine. The only nation with a predominantly Muslim population where the novel remains legal is Turkey. Several nations with large Muslim minorities, including Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, also impose penalties for possessing the novel.
* May 1989: Popular musician Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) gives indirect support for the fatwa and states during a British television documentary, according to the New York Times, that if Rushdie shows up at his door, he "might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like... I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is." Yusuf Islam later denies giving any support to the fatwa.[6] For more on this topic see Cat Stevens: Rushdie Controversy
* June 3, 1989: Khomeini dies.
* 1990: Rushdie apologised to Muslims and even formally re-converted to Islam,[7] but recanted a short time later describing it as the "biggest mistake of my life" in an interview he gave to Anne McElvoy of The Times published on August 26, 1995.
* 1990: Rushdie publishes an essay on Khomeini's death, "In Good Faith", to appease his critics and issues an apology in which he seems to reaffirm his respect for Islam; however, Iranian clerics do not retract the fatwa.
* 1990: Five bombings target bookstores in England.
* July 1991: Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel's Japanese translator, is stabbed to death; and Ettore Capriolo, its Italian translator, is seriously wounded.
* July 2, 1993: Thirty-seven Turkish intellectuals and locals participating in the Pir Sultan Abdal Literary Festival, die when their hotel in Sivas, Turkey, namely the Madimak Hotel, is burnt down by 2000 members of various anti-democratic, pro-sharia radical Islamist groups protesting against Aziz Nesin, Rushdie's Turkish translator.
* October 1993: The novel's Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, is shot and seriously injured.
* 1993: The 15 Khordad Foundation in Iran raises the reward for Rushdie's murder to $300,000.
* 1997: The bounty is doubled, to $600,000.
* 1998: Iranian government publicly declares that it will not carry out the death sentence against Rushdie.
This is announced as part of a wider agreement to normalise relations between Iran and the United Kingdom. Rushdie subsequently declares that he will stop living in hiding, and that he regrets attempts to appease his critics by making statements to the effect that he is a practicing Muslim. Rushdie affirms that he is not, in fact, religious. Despite the death of Khomeini and the Iranian government's official declaration, the fatwa remains in force, according to certain members of the Islamic fundamentalist media:
"The responsibility for carrying out the fatwa was not the exclusive responsibility of Iran. It is the religious duty of all Muslims those who have the ability or the means to carry it out. It does not require any reward. In fact, those who carry out this edict in hopes of a monetary reward are acting against Islamic injunctions."[citation needed]
* 1999: An Iranian foundation places a $2.8 million bounty on Rushdie's life.
* January 2002: South Africa lifts its ban on the Satanic Verses ."[8]
* February 16, 2003: Iran's Revolutionary Guards reiterate the call for the assassination of Rushdie. As reported by the Sunday Herald, "Ayatollah Hassan Saneii, head of the semi-official Khordad Foundation that has placed a $2.8 million bounty on Rushdie's head, was quoted by the Jomhuri Islami newspaper as saying that his foundation would now pay $3 million to anyone who kills Rushdie."[9]
* March 2004: 16 years after the first English edition Hungarian translation is published, translator's name not specified for security reasons.
* Early 2005: Khomeini's fatwa against Rushdie is reaffirmed by Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Iran has rejected requests to withdraw the fatwa on the basis that only the person who issued it may withdraw it.
* February 14, 2006: Irans official state news agency reports on the anniversary of the decree that the government-run Martyrs Foundation has announced, "The fatwa by Imam Khomeini in regard to the apostate Salman Rushdie will be in effect forever", and that one of Irans state bonyad, or foundations, has offered a $2.8 million bounty on his life.[3]
* June 15, 2007: Rushdie receives knighthood for services to literature sparking an outcry from Islamic groups.
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