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 was not a plot targeting Islam, saying "A lot of people were upset when John Cleese made "Life of Brian". Others had been offended by Mel Gibson's 2004 film, "The Passion of the Christ". ...[Britons] have a right to express opinions and a tolerance of other people's point of view, and we don't apologise for that." In a similar light John Sutherland, emeritus professor of literature and former Booker prize judge, noted that Islam was not the only institution held up for criticism by Rushdie in his most controversial book. He pointed out that "For the writer of "The Satanic