Salman Rushdie Attack Recalls Murder of His Japanese Translator

TOKYO — The assault on Salman Rushdie in western New York State on Friday prompted renewed curiosity in earlier assaults on individuals linked to his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” together with its Japanese translator, who was killed in 1991.

The translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to dying at age 44 that July at Tsukuba College, northeast of Tokyo, the place he had been instructing comparative Islamic tradition for 5 years. No arrests have been ever made, and the crime stays unsolved.

Mr. Igarashi had translated “The Satanic Verses” for a Japanese version that was printed after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the supreme chief of Iran, had ordered Muslims to kill the Indian-born British author over the guide’s depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

Mr. Rushdie, 75, who went into surgical procedure on Friday after being stabbed by an attacker in Chautauqua, N.Y., had stated in 1991 that news of Mr. Igarashi’s dying had left him feeling “extremely distressed.”

The police in Japan stated on the time that they'd no particular proof linking the assault to “The Satanic Verses.” However news studies stated that the novel’s Japanese writer had obtained dying threats from Islamist militants, and that Mr. Igarashi had for a time been protected by bodyguards.

The publishing home, Shinsensha, had additionally confronted protests at its Tokyo workplace in 1990, and a Pakistani citizen was arrested that 12 months for making an attempt to assault a promoter of the guide at a news convention.

Mr. Igarashi was killed as he left his workplace at Tsukuba College after a day of instructing. His son, Ataru Igarashi, informed a reporter years later that he had been engaged on translating “The Canon of Medicine,” a medieval medical textbook by the Islamic doctor and thinker Ibn Sina.

The police stated {that a} janitor had discovered Mr. Igarashi’s physique close to an elevator with slash wounds on his neck, face and fingers. A brown leather-based bag that Mr. Igarashi had been carrying was coated in slash marks, suggesting that he had tried to defend himself throughout the assault, the Shukan Asahi journal reported.

He was survived by his spouse, Masako Igarashi, and their two kids.

Hypothesis concerning the killing circulated within the Japanese news media for years. Probably the most outstanding concept, reported in 1998 by the journal Each day Shincho, was that investigators had briefly recognized a Bangladeshi pupil at Tsukuba College as a suspect, however that they'd stood down amid strain from high officers, who apprehensive concerning the potential implications for Japan’s relations with Islamic nations. No stable proof of that concept ever emerged.

Mr. Igarashi would be the solely individual to be killed due to their work with Mr. Rushdie. A number of others survived makes an attempt on their lives, together with Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator of “The Satanic Verses,” who was stabbed in his house in Milan days earlier than the assault on Mr. Igarashi.

In July 1993, the Turkish novelist Aziz Nesin, who had printed a translated excerpt from “The Satanic Verses” in an area newspaper, narrowly escaped dying when a crowd of militants burned down a lodge in jap Turkey the place he was staying in an try to kill him.

Mr. Nesin, who was then 78, escaped the constructing through a firefighters’ ladder. However 37 others — intellectuals who had gathered on the lodge to debate methods of selling secularism — died within the blaze. A Turkish courtroom later sentenced 33 individuals to dying for his or her roles within the assault.

In October 1993, the Norwegian writer of “The Satanic Verses,” William Nygaard, was shot thrice outdoors his dwelling in Oslo. He made a full restoration and went on to reprint the guide in defiance.

In 2018, the Norwegian police filed expenses within the case two days earlier than a deadline that will have foreclosed prosecution. They declined to call the suspects or specify what number of had been charged.

As for Mr. Igarashi’s killing, the statute of limitations within the case expired in 2006, producing a common sense of disappointment that there can be no closure — or reflection on what the homicide meant for the nation.

“If a perpetrator had been caught, then perhaps that would have spurred a discussion on freedom of religion and speech,” stated Sachi Sakanashi, a researcher on the Institute of Power Economics in Tokyo who makes a speciality of Iranian politics. “However, that did not happen.”

In 2009, the professor’s widow, Masako Igarashi, picked up his pockets, glasses and different possessions from a police station the place they'd lengthy been held as proof, the Shukan Asahi journal reported.

However final 12 months, police officers informed the Mainichi Shimbun that they have been persevering with to analyze Mr. Igarashi’s killing within the hope that the statute of limitations won't apply if a perpetrator turned out to have fled the nation.

Ms. Igarashi, a highschool principal and a scholar of comparative Japanese literature, informed the newspaper that she held out hope of discovering justice.

“When times change,” she informed the Mainichi Shimbun, “the possibility of a sudden breakthrough won’t be zero.”

Hikari Hida reported from Tokyo, Mike Ives from Seoul.