Short Takes : Rushdie Contacts Muslims

WASHINGTON —  Author Salman Rushdie, who recently emerged from nearly two years of hiding over Iran’s order that he be killed for blasphemy, said today that he hopes to rebuild his bridges to the Muslim community and live a more normal life.

“What I’m trying to do is seize back bits of my life,” Rushdie said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.

The Indian-born writer emerged from hiding Dec. 5, signing copies of his new book at a north London bookshop. He went underground in February, 1989, when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini ordered him put to death for allegedly blaspheming Islam with his book, “The Satanic Verses.”

Iran’s Islamic Culture and Guidance Minister Mohammed Khatami renewed the sentence this month, and an Iranian charity said it would pay $1 million to anyone who kills Rushdie.

Rushdie said he has been contacting Muslim leaders in Britain and elsewhere to resolve what he called “this terrible misunderstanding” and was encouraged by the conversations.