Fact-check: Did Salman Rushdie say that the goal of Muslims is to destroy the entire country?

A graphic image is being shared on social media with a caption that the famous author Salman Rushdie said that Muslims, no matter where they live, aim to destroy the whole country through terrorism, bomb blasts, population explosion, riots and jihad in the name of Islam.

Well, can't deny, seems perfectly right. pic.twitter.com/ehG64Gey1c

— Renee Lynn (@Voice_For_India) June 7, 2023

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Reene lynn shared this image and writes, “Well, can’t deny, seems perfectly right.”

The English text in the image reads – “Muslims, whether they live in Pakistan or India, Nigeria or Syria, whether they are poor or rich, illiterate or educated, their only goal is to destroy the whole nation by terrorism, bomb blasts, population explosion, riots and jihad in the name of Islam.”- Salman Rushdie.

Fact Check:

In order to verify the claim, the DFRAC team searched for relevant keywords on Google and found that in 2015 Salman Rushdie had replied to a tweet by @LucyGoesHard on Twitter, saying, “Thank you for looking for the source of this fake quote. People cannot stop quoting this to prove their bigotry.”

.@LucyGoesHard Thank you for finding the source of this fake quote that people can't seem to stop quoting to justify their own bigotry.

— Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) March 7, 2015

Further investigation by the DFRAC team did not find any credible source validating the claim or any report by the author claiming such a statement against Muslims.

pic.twitter.com/FyTX0SuwuR

— John B Tawn (@27Tawnyowl) August 4, 2020

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Conclusion:

The fact-check conducted by DFRAC clarifies that the viral quote attributed to Salman Rushdie is false and misleading. The author himself called it a fake quote, hence the claim of social media users is incorrect and untrue.