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
Thomas Pynchon has written that Belying this reputation somewhat, Pynchon has published a number of articles and reviews in the mainstream American media, including words of support for Salman Rushdie and his then-wife, Marianne Wiggins, after the fatwa was pronounced against Rushdie by the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In the following year, Rushdie's enthusiastic review of Pynchon's "Vineland" prompted Pynchon to send him another message hinting that if Rushdie were ever in New York, the two should arrange a meeting. Eventually, the two did meet, and Rushdie said of him that he was "extremely Pynchon-esque" and "the Pynchon he wanted him