Salman Rushdie chortles over Larry David’s ‘fatwa’

Author Salman Rushdie thinks it’s pretty, pretty funny that the long-awaited premier of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” has a plot modeled on his own experience of being targeted by the Iranian regime with a fatwa.

In the first episode of the 9th season, which aired October 1, Larry David’s eponymous character talks about a musical he has been at work on, based on Rushdie, called — what else — “Fatwa!”

After a fictional Iranian ayatollah issues his own fatwa — or religious decree — ordering the death of the Seinfeld creator, the very Jewy David panics, offering to repent or even become Muslim, though the cleric declares that “even if he converts, he should still be sent to hell.”

In 1989, Rushdie, an award-winning author, faced the real thing when Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his death over the publication of “The Satanic Verses,” because of how it portrayed the prophet Mohammed.

The move forced the author into hiding, sparked a diplomatic row between the UK and Iran and made Rushdie into a household name and a popular pop-culture reference.

Though the fatwa remains in place, Rushdie is now seen in public regularly. On an appearance on “Late Night with Seth Myers” on Tuesday, the India-born Rushdie said he was happy ‘Curb’ was able to help remove some of the stigma around his book, which has been misconstrued as stuffy and serious because of the seriousness of the threat against him.

“I think in a funny way ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ making jokes about it is kind of cool because it defuses it,” he said on the talk show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ompz8ciG4Ug

David’s show is no stranger to making jokes around religious or ethnic themed controversies. In Season 8, which aired in 2011, or a lifetime ago, a Palestinian chicken restaurant moving next to a Jewish deli was used as a heavy-handed stand-in for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8XNrAjh7eo

The episode ends with David forced to choose between the delicious chicken, complete with the bombshell Arab waitress who works there, and a group of angry pro-Israel activists.

Law professor Alan Dershowitz reportedly mailed the episode shortly after it aired to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the hopes it would inspire him to convene a summit with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to watch the episode and find a way to peace.

“It may be that Larry David will not only win Emmys, but he may even qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize, if his episode could bring together Netanyahu and Abbas, and bring Abbas to the negotiating table,” Dershowitz told the Columbia Current at the time.