Knighthood of Salman Rushdie All other aspects were for the main committee to examine. The British Foreign Office, which has a permanent secretary on the main committee, announced that there had been no requests to gauge possible Muslim reaction to the knighthood. It was noted that Rushdie's 13 books have won numerous awards, including the Booker Prize for "Midnight's Children" in 1981, the Booker of Bookers prize, the Whitbread novel award (twice), and the James Tait Black memorial prize. PEN International had been a constant supporter of Rushdie being honoured, believing that awarding the author (born in India) would be "seen as a positive
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie a pretext to do something against (Britain). ... When your Queen awards Salman Rushdie and turns him into a knight, what do you expect? This is a blasphemy. This is an insult to all the prophets of the world." After Friday prayer services on 22 June 2007 Prominent cleric Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami spoke to worshipers by broadcast on state radio from Tehran. He addressed the death sentence issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against Rushdie, saying "In the Islamic Iran that revolutionary "fatwa" of Imam [Khomeini] is still alive and cannot be changed." He went on to say that "The old