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
Deborah Rogers At the end of her life, Rogers was the chairman of Rogers, Coleridge and White. Among the authors Rogers represented were A. S. Byatt, Ian McEwan and Peter Carey. Earlier in her career she had represented Angela Carter, and (before he joined Andrew Wylie's agency) Salman Rushdie. Shortly after the professional breach, Rogers offered Rushdie her second home as a refuge from the fatwā (death sentence) imposed by Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989. The remote farm in Powys was used by Rushdie during his decade in hiding. Rogers was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing at the