Bill Maher Offers Tribute to ‘Dear Friend’ Salman Rushdie After Stabbing, Calls For Open Debate on Religious Fundamentalism

Bill Maher, HBO’s late-night political satirist and the host of Real Time, addressed the stabbing of his “dear friend” Salman Rushdie during the most recent episode of his show.

“First, I have to say something — it’s somewhat personal but also national news,” Maher said on Friday. “A dear friend of mine, good friend of this show, got stabbed today, Salman Rushdie. I’m sure people have seen this news.”

On Sunday, news broke that Rushdie had been “taken off a ventilator and can talk again” after being stabbed some ten times in the face, neck, and abdomen, reported the BBC.

Maher, who has long been a vocal critic of fundamentalist religious views, including those in Islam, commented on the motivations behind the attack on Rushdie.

“We don’t know the motivation yet, but Sal did have some enemies in the past, as I recall. So I’m guessing Hadi is not Amish,” Maher said, noting the name of Rushdie’s attacker.

Rushdie was forced into hiding for nearly a decade in 1989 after his novel The Satanic Verses was deemed an insult to Islam by the government of Iran, which then issued a fatwa for Rushdie’s death.

Maher continued, noting Rushdie “was giving a lecture, how about this for irony, about how the U.S. is a safe haven for exiled writers and other artists under threat of persecution. And making that speech itself is unthinkable in most Muslim countries.”

“Salman Rushdie, living in most Muslim countries without getting stabbed every day is unthinkable. So don’t come at me with ‘Islamophobic,’ ‘phobic’ means fear, right? Well, Sal had a good reason to be fearful. And when you say ‘phobic,’ it’s just a way to shut off debate,” Maher continued.

“You know, there are ‘transphobic,’ ‘Islamophobic,’ and we should have a debate about this. Sorry, but you know, these things don’t go away. Islam is still a much more fundamentalist religion than any of the other religions in the world,” Maher argued.

“And that means they take what’s in the Holy Book seriously. And that has been dangerous for a long time. It’s still dangerous. This was 1989 when he was first threatened,” Maher concluded.

Piers Morgan was a guest on the show and he jumped in to read a quote from Rushdie. “The defense of free speech begins at the point when people say something you can’t stand,” Morgan said, offering his take on the importance of free speech.

Watch the full clip above