Iran Hints That Rushdie May Save His Life With an Apology to Muslims

Iran’s president said Friday that Salman Rushdie, the author of “The Satanic Verses,” might save his life with an apology, while an Iranian envoy said his nation’s death penalty for the writer was “purely a religious statement.”

“If the purely religious-based opinion of a religious head is going to be interpreted politically, it is very unfortunate,” said Akhoond Zadeh Basti, Iran’s charge d’affaires in London.

On Tuesday, Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said Rushdie’s novel slanders Islam, and ordered Muslims to track down and kill the author, an Indian-born British citizen.

Outcry over the statement continued Friday as the governments of West Germany and Spain condemned the Iranian campaign.

Won’t Publish Book

Publishers in France, West Germany, Greece and Turkey, however, said they decided not to publish the book, and the Greek publishers said they would postpone its release out of fear for their lives. Others in Finland, Norway and Italy were unswayed.

In New York, The B. Dalton bookstore chain Friday ordered its 1,250 stores to pull Rushdie’s novel from display shelves.

The announcement came a day after Waldenbooks, another huge chain, ordered copies of the book off store shelves because of the threat of violence from Muslims outraged because they say the book blasphemes the prophet Mohammed.

There also were more demonstrations, including one in the northern Indian city of Srinigar in which 75 people were injured in a clash between police and anti-Rushdie protesters, officials said.

‘On Religious Grounds’

“The statements made by the Ayatollah Khomeini are based purely on religious grounds,” Basti said in an interview with Britain’s Channel Four Independent Television News.

“I said to the Foreign Office yesterday that this opinion does not imply any political gesture by Iran, nor does it imply any interference in internal affairs of your country, which we have diplomacy with,” he said. “It is purely a religious statement.

“And I am very surprised that this statement has been misinterpreted in this country.”

Iranian president Ali Khamenei said at a prayers in Tehran that “this wretched man (Rushdie) has no choice but to die because he has confronted a billion Muslims and the imam (Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini).”

‘I Made a Blunder’

“Of course, he may repent and say, ‘I made a blunder’ and apologize to Muslims and the imam. Then it is possible that the people may pardon him,” Khamenei said.

Sheik Gamal Suleiman, a senior leader at the London Central Mosque, also suggested that Rushdie apologize.

“Even if Salman Rushdie has committed something horrible, I think we should show clemency, and that is the spirit of our religion,” Suleiman said. “If he makes public apology, and this public apology is circulated by the publisher, and the publisher joins in the apology, I think the balance will be redressed.”

The book’s publishers, Viking, said earlier last week that it and the author “very much regret the distress the book has caused.” Viking did not apologize for publishing the book.

Bomb Threat Made

Siri Huntoon, who said she worked in Viking Penguin Inc.’s production department, said company officials made their 100 employees leave the building in New York City on Thursday afternoon after a bomb threat was made. The doors of the six-story building were locked, and 14 city police stood outside Friday.

British officials said Friday that threats against airliners, made in India by callers claiming to represent the Iranian Guards, were being taken “very seriously indeed.” British Airways ordered searches of every bag put aboard its flights to India and the Far East.

An Iranian news agency report, monitored in Nicosia, said tens of thousands of high school students marched through the center of Tehran shouting anti-British slogans.

There were demonstrations throughout Pakistan, and in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1,000 protesters marched through the city chanting, “Set fire to the U.S. Mission!” and “Hang Salman Rushdie!”

Envoy Recalled

West Germany, which is Iran’s biggest trading partner, expressed consternation with the campaign against Rushdie. West Germany has recalled its charge d’affaires from Tehran.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Juergen Chrobog said the Iranian ambassador to West Germany, Mehdi Ahary Mostafavi, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry Friday and warned that the death threat poses “an encumbrance for German-Iranian relations.”

The Spanish Foreign Ministry said it “considers unacceptable the incitement to violence on the part of Iranian authorities against the British citizen Salman Rushdie.”

The Spanish publisher, Editorial Seix-Barral, said it was undecided whether to publish the book.

Meeting Opposed

Kuwait’s foreign undersecretary, Suleiman Majed Al-Shaheen, rejected Iran’s call for an emergency session of the Islamic Conference organization, saying the book “did not deserve all this fuss.”

Finland’s foreign trade minister, Pertti Salolainen, said he might call off a trip to Iran that he had planned for next month.

Norway’s Foreign Ministry said it informed an Iranian diplomat that “Norway has no kind of censorship or control with publication of books” and “we have no wish or opportunity to stop publication of the book in question,” said ministry spokeswoman Sigrid Romundset.

In Canada, the government halted imports of the book until it could review a complaint by a Muslim group that “The Satanic Verses” violated the nation’s law against “hate propaganda.”

Book Condemned

Muslims condemned the book when it was published late last year to critical acclaim in the West. The more recent protests began last weekend with demonstrations in Pakistan.

After Khomeini ordered Rushdie’s death, Iranian religious leaders offered a bounty of $5.2 million.

Rushdie and his family were hiding Friday under the protection of Scotland Yard. His book, meanwhile, has been enjoying booming sales in Britain and the United States.

Muslims say “The Satanic Verses” blasphemes their religion by, among other things, portraying the prophet Mohammed’s wives as prostitutes and suggesting that he wrote the Koran, the holy book of Islam, rather than receiving it from God.

Rushdie has said the novel is fictional and not blasphemous.

Publication of the book has been postponed in France, but the conservative daily newspaper Le Figaro on Friday published excerpts.

“We cannot accept calls to murder a man . . . a writer who has the right to freedom of expression. We are giving that right to him,” Le Figaro said.