Fatwa Issued Against Iranian Rapper
What did he expect? This is a country that hangs men for having gay sex, among other brutalities. I’m talking about Shahin Najafi, an Iranian rapper who has become “the Salman Rushdie of music” after clerics in the Islamic republic issued fatwas calling him an apostate, which is considered punishable by death under the country’s sharia law. (And, yes, I know, the U.S. has capital punishment, but as far as I know not for “crimes” of expression.) Najafi, a Germany-based Iranian singer, recently released a song with references to Ali al-Hadi al-Naqi, the tenth of the 12 Shia Muslim Imams, a religious figure highly respected by millions in Iran.
