Claim: Salman Rushdie said Muslims’ “only goal is to destroy the whole nation by terrorism, bomb blasts, population explosion, riots and jihad in the name of Islam”.
Fact: Rushdie has not made such a comment; in fact, he has denied ever having said this multiple times.
On 15 April 2024, Facebook user ‘Eddie Hinman’ posted (archive) a visual containing a picture of author Salman Rushdie alongside a quote attributed to him; it reads as follows:
“‘Muslims, whether they live in Pakistan or India, Nigeria or Syria, whether they are poor or rich, illiterate or educated, their only goal is to destroy the whole nation by terrorism, bomb blasts, population explosion, riots and jihad in the name of Islam.’ -Salman Rushdie”
Rushdie and controversy
The Indian-origin British-American author lost an eye during an assassination attempt in August 2022, when a 24-year-old suspect, Hadi Matar, stabbed him over a dozen times when Rushdie was on the stage for a public lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York.
Matar was charged with attempted murder and assault but pleaded not guilty. A trial that was supposed to start on 8 January 2024 has been postponed.
The 76-year-old author has written about surviving the attack in his new memoir titled “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.”
Rushdie has been mired in controversy for much of his life, particularly after Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or Islamic decree, calling for his execution and labelling his novel “The Satanic Verses” blasphemous. The author resettled in New York in 2000 after almost a decade of living under police protection.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check looked up the quote alongside the author’s name on Google using the advanced search option but did not find it in any report by a reputable news outlet.
We did, however, come across the suspicious quote posted on social media numerous times years ago.
Soch Fact Check then looked up Rushdie’s X (formerly Twitter) profile and found that he quoted one similar post — published 21 April and carrying the same image — to refute it, saying, “Oh for goodness’ sake. This is a fake quote as I have said many times. Stop it, please.”
The author has previously flagged the same quote, at least twice. On 6 August 2020, he stated that he “never said anything of this sort” and tagged Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former chief executive of X, asking him to have the post taken down.
Prior to that, user @LucyGoesHard reportedly found (archive) the source of the “original” quote, posted on an unidentified platform on 19 September 2014, to which Rushdie, in a post on 7 March 2015, said, “Thank you for finding the source of this fake quote that people can’t seem to stop quoting to justify their own bigotry.”
Therefore, Soch Fact Check concludes that the quote was falsely attributed to Rushdie. We have previously debunked another anti-Islam quote that was wrongly linked to the author here.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the false quote posted here, here, here, and here on X. In 2020, it was shared here on the same platform.
On Facebook, the quote has been doing the rounds for many years. It was posted here, here, here, here, and here in 2024, here in 2023, and here, here, and here in 2017.
It also appears in a list of alleged quotes by Salman Rushdie here.
Conclusion: Salman Rushdie did not say that Muslims’ “only goal is to destroy the whole nation by terrorism, bomb blasts, population explosion, riots and jihad in the name of Islam”. In fact, the writer has denied ever having made such a comment multiple times.
Background image in cover photo: salmanrushdieauthor
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