‘It made me who I am’: Salman Rushdie’s son Zafar on living under the shadow of the fatwa for 11 years
CHAUTAUQUA, NEW YORK: Zafar Rushdie, 40, is Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie's eldest son. Born in 1979 to Rushdie and his first wife Clarissa Luard, he was nine-years-old when the fatwa against his father was issued by Iran's Ayatollah Khomenei. For 11 long years, he lived under the shadow of the terrifying edict. When asked about it, he said, "I had no wish that it hadn’t happened. It’s made me who I am now."
Zafar has often spoken about the time he spent with his father. He had once said that having police around him 24/7 was fun at first but it was quickly overshadowed by the sinister threat that was always lurking. "The fatwa was fun for me at first. I was 9, and I came home one day to find police in the house. It was really cool to be around these big guys with guns. But I soon found out enough to realize there was a big deal going on, and it wasn't good," Zafar told the Evening Standard.
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Rushdie's autobiography, 'Joseph Anton,' is dedicated to his sons Zafar and Milan Rushdie, as well as their mothers, Clarissa Luard and Elizabeth West. The novelist's warmth and compassion for his children shines through the book. At one point, he refers to Zafar as an "amazing boy." Zafar, who now runs his own public relations firm, had a rocky childhood in a way: he was nine when the fatwa began, 15 when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and 19 when she died.
Zafar once revealed, "I don't remember ever being scared. You didn’t know what to be scared of. In the beginning, there was a time when I would pick up the phone and there would be somebody at the end of the line and they said they knew where I lived and they would be coming to kill me. We were ex-directory and they would still get hold of the number. That was concerning," he told the Evening Standard. "I got home and I called my Mum and said, ‘What is this?’ And then it took 10 years to work out what was going on and how best to combat it," he added.
Twelve police cars would escort Zafar when he returned to his prep school, The Hall. Despite the fact that he was never under police protection at home, he could never meet his father in public, Evening Standard reported. "I think the saddest part is you have to learn to lie as a matter of course. Friends would ask, ‘Where are you this weekend?’ ‘Oh, I’m hanging out with my Mum,’ I would say, when I was hanging out with dad. They were not dramatic lies but withholding information lies," he said.
Rushdie once said in an interview with Big Issue in 2016 that it was very important to him to be a good father to his sons, especially Zafar. "He was nine years old when [the fatwa] began and his whole childhood was shaped and marked by it. I tried to explain what was happening because I thought the worst thing would be him just hearing about it and being terrified. Of course, I was afraid for his security – his mother and I tried our best to make sure he had a vaguely normal childhood but it was a very tough time for him," the author said.
Zafar, who is now married to Natalie, a trained jazz singer, had their first child, a daughter, in 2020. Zafar and Natalie "both hope to rope Salman in to help with homework when the time comes”, Hello Magazine reported.