was a Japanese scholar of Arabic and Persian literature and history and the Japanese translator of

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and ...

's novel ''

The Satanic Verses ''The Satanic Verses'' is the fourth novel of British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie. First published in September 1988, the book was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism ...

''. He was murdered in the wake of

fatwa A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist ...

s issued by Ayatollah

Ruhollah Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...

of Iran – who, by the time of Igarashi's murder, had died – calling for the death of the book's author and "those involved in its publication." His murder remains unsolved.

Early life and education

Igarashi was born in 1947. He completed his doctoral programme in

Islamic art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide ra ...

at the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...

in 1976, and was a research fellow at the Royal Academy of Iran until the

Islamic Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...

in 1979.

Career

Igarashi was an associate professor of comparative Islamic culture at the

University of Tsukuba is a public university, public research university located in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Ibaraki, Japan. It is a top 10 Designated National University, and was ranked Type A by the Japanese government as part of the Top Global University Pro ...

. He translated

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic ...

's ''The Canon of Medicine'' and

's ''The Satanic Verses'' and wrote books on Islam, including ''The Islamic Renaissance'' and ''Medicine and Wisdom of the East''.

Death

In early 1989,

Supreme Leader of Iran The Supreme Leader of Iran ( fa, رهبر ایران, rahbar-e irān) is the head of state of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Supreme Leader directs the executive system and judicial system of the Islamic theocratic government and is the co ...

issued a

, calling for the death of "the author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Qur'an". In March 1991, Khomeini's successor

Ali Khamenei Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei ( fa, سید علی حسینی خامنه‌ای, ; born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia '' marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third presiden ...

issued a further fatwa and multimillion-dollar bounty for the death of "any of those involved in its publication who are aware of its content". In 1990, one year after the issuing of these fatwas, Igarashi and his publisher Gianni Palma held a press conference in Tokyo to announce their translation into Japanese of ''The Satanic Verses''. Shi'a Muslims attended the event in order to protest the publication, and midway through, a Pakistani Muslim rushed onto the stage and attempted to assault Palma. The attacker was arrested and deported. A year and a half later, Igarashi was stabbed repeatedly in the face and arms by an unknown assailant and died. His body was found on 12 July 1991 in his office at the

. In 2006, the

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...

on the stabbing expired.

Kenneth M. Pollack Kenneth Michael Pollack (born 1966) is an American former CIA intelligence analyst and expert on Middle East politics and military affairs. He has served on the National Security Council staff and has written several articles and books on interna ...

alleged in ''The Persian Puzzle'' that the attack was a covert operation by the Iranian

Revolutionary Guards The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Igarashi, Hitoshi 1947 births 1991 deaths 20th-century Japanese translators Deaths by stabbing in Japan English–Japanese translators Fatwas Japanese murder victims Male murder victims People from Niigata (city) People murdered in Japan Salman Rushdie University of Tokyo alumni Unsolved murders in Japan Victims of Islamic terrorism

Early life and education

Career

Death

See also

References