Abdullah al-Ahdal Abdullah al-Ahdal Abdullah bin Muhammad al-Ahdal, a native of Saudi Arabia, was the great Imam of Belgium. He died in 1989 in Brussels. On March 29, 1989, while he was rector of the Great Mosque of Brussels, a gunman entered and shot him. The Lebanese terrorist organization Soldiers of the Right claimed credit for the murders Belgian authorities and the news media linked the killings to "The Satanic Verses" controversy: the previous month Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwā ordering Muslims to kill novelist Salman Rushdie because of their objections to the publication of his book "The Satanic
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie terrorism", and that "if someone committed a suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Mohammad, his act was justified." He called on all Muslim governments to break ties with Britain and warned that "This is an occasion for the [world's] 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision. If Muslims do not unite, the situation will get worse and Salman Rushdie may get a seat in the British parliament." When asked about his comments about suicide bombing later Haq stated that he "did not mean such attacks would be justified but was merely saying militants