Why the Death Edict on Salman Rushdie?

The stabbing of Salman Rushdie raises the question: Why did Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sentence Salman Rushdie to death in 1989 for his novel The Satanic Verses?

The Satanic Stabbing of Salman Rushdie and the Dangerous Iran Deal

President Biden should consider the assault to be a metaphor for the dangers inherent in the West’s falling prey to the deadly machine that emboldened the terrorist from New Jersey. But he didn’t even dare to mention the “fatwa”—or terrorism—in his public statement.