TOKYO — The attack on Salman Rushdie in western New York State on Friday sparked renewed interest in past attacks on people linked to his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” including the Japanese translator, who was murdered in 1991.
the translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death in July at the age of 44 at Tsukuba University, northeast of Tokyo, where he taught comparative Islamic culture for five years. No arrests have ever been made and the crime remains unsolved.
Mr. Igarashi had translated “The Satanic Verses” for a Japanese edition that was later published Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiniwhen Iran’s supreme leader had ordered Muslims to kill the Indian-born British writer because of the book’s depiction of the prophet Muhammad.
Rushdie, 75, who underwent surgery Friday after being stabbed by an attacker in Chautauqua, NY, had said in 1991 that news of Mr. Igarashi had made him “extremely sad”.
Police in Japan said at the time they had no specific evidence linking the attack to “The Satanic Verses.” But news reports said the Japanese publisher of the novel had received death threats from Islamist militants, and that Mr. Igarashi was protected by bodyguards for a while.
The publishing house, Shinsensha, had also faced protests at its Tokyo office in 1990, and a Pakistani national was arrested that year for attempting to attack a promoter of the book during a press conference.
mr. Igarashi was murdered when he left his office at Tsukuba University after a day of teaching. His son, Ataru Igarashi, told a reporter years later that he had been working on translating “The Canon of Medicine,” a medieval medical textbook by the Islamic physician and philosopher. Ibn Sinai.
Police said a janitor found Mr Igarashi’s body near an elevator with cuts to his neck, face and hands. A brown leather bag Mr. Igarashi was carrying was covered in slashes, suggesting he had tried to defend himself during the attack, Shukan Asahi magazine reported.
He was survived by his wife, Masako Igarashi, and their two children.
Speculation about the murder had been circulating in the Japanese news media for years. The most prominent theory, reported in 1998 by the journal Daily Shincho, was that investigators briefly identified a Bangladeshi student at Tsukuba University as a suspect, but they had backed down under pressure from top officials, who were concerned about the potential implications. for Japanese relations with Islamic countries. No solid evidence of that theory has ever emerged.
mr. Igarashi may be the only person killed for their work with Mr. Rushdie. Several others survived attempts on their lives, including Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator of “The Satanic Verses,” who was stabbed to death in his Milan apartment days before the attack on Igarashi.
In July 1993, Turkish novelist Aziz Nesin, who had published a translated excerpt from “The Satanic Verses” in a local newspaper, narrowly escaped death when a mob of militants burned down a hotel in eastern Turkey where he stayed in an attempt to kill him.
Mr Nesin, who was 78 at the time, escaped from the building via a fire ladder. But 37 others — intellectuals gathered at the hotel to discuss ways to promote secularism — died in the fire. A Turkish court later 33 people sentenced to death for their role in the attack.
In October 1993, the Norwegian publisher of “The Satanic Verses”, William Nygaard, shot three times outside his home in Oslo. He made a full recovery and continued with reprint the book defiantly.
In 2018, the Norwegian police filed a complaint in the case two days before a deadline that would have ruled out prosecution. They declined to name the suspects or specify how many had been charged.
As for the murder of Mr. Igarashi, the… limitation period in the case came to an end in 2006, causing a general sense of disappointment that there would be no closure — or reflection on what the murder meant for the country.
“Had a perpetrator been caught, it might have sparked a discussion about freedom of religion and expression,” said Sachi Sakanashi, a researcher at the Institute of Energy Economics in Tokyo who specializes in Iranian politics. “However, that didn’t happen.”
In 2009, the professor’s widow, Masako Igarashi, retrieved his wallet, glasses and other belongings from a police station where they had been held for a long time as evidence, Shukan Asahi magazine reported.
But last year, police officials told the Mainichi Shimbun that they were continuing to investigate Mr. Igarashi in the hope that the statute of limitations would not apply if an offender fled the country.
Ms. Igarashi, a high school principal and a scientist in comparative Japanese literature, told the newspaper that she had hopes for justice.
“If times change,” she told the Mainichi Shimbun, “the chances of a sudden breakthrough won’t be zero.”
Hikari Hida message from Tokyo, Mike Ives from Seoul.