Hitoshi Igarashi

Igarashi was born in 1947.[1] He completed his doctoral programme in Islamic art at the University of Tokyo in 1976, and was research fellow at the Royal Academy of Iran until the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Igarashi was an associate professor of comparative Islamic culture at the University of Tsukuba.[2] He translated Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine and Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses[3] and wrote books on Islam, including The Islamic Renaissance and Medicine and Wisdom of the East.[4]

In early 1989, Supreme Leader of Iran Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, calling for the death of "the author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Qur'an". In March 1991, Khomeini's successor Ali Khamenei issued a further fatwa and multimillion-dollar bounty for the death of "any of those involved in its publication who are aware of its content".[5] After the issuing of these fatwas, Igarashi was stabbed repeatedly in the face and arms by an unknown assailant and died. His body was found on 12 July 1991 in his office at the University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.[1][4]

In 2006, the case was closed without having determined any individual suspects. Kenneth M. Pollack alleged in The Persian Puzzle that the attack was a covert operation by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. According to the unverified rumor, the Japanese government has refrained from applying for the extradition of the suspect from Bangladesh due to fears of inflaming anger over the Satanic Verses controversy.

• List of unsolved deaths