Mention By Al-Qaeda
On 10 July 2007, BBC news reported that Al-Qaeda have also condemned the Rushdie honour. In a 20-minute audio recording entitled "Malicious Britain and its Indian Slaves" which was released onto a militant Islamic website, Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri condemned British involvement in Afghanistan, and Iraq and called Rushdie's knighthood "an insult to Islam". He went on to remark "I say to (Queen) Elizabeth and (former prime minister Tony) Blair that your message has reached us and we are in the process of preparing for you a precise response". Concerning the recording the British Foreign Office stated "The Government has already made clear that Rushdie’s honour was not intended as an insult to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad." Prime Minister Gordon Brown replied to the threat saying "Nothing can justify either threats to the United Kingdom or any form of terrorist activity and it must be the right of the United Kingdom to make its own decisions on all these issues."
Read more about this topic: Knighthood Of Salman Rushdie
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“A kind of Pythagorean terror, as though the irrationality of pi were an offence against the deity, not to mention his creature.”
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