A foundation in Iran has offered to give a 1000sq meters of farmland to the man accused of carrying out a horrific stabbing attack on novelist, Salman Rushdie, according to Iranian state media.

Rushdie, 75, lost an eye and the use of one of his hands as a result of the on-stage assault at a literary event in New York in August 2022.

Hadi Matar has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges.

“We sincerely thank the brave action of the young American who made Muslims happy by blinding one of Rushdie’s eyes and disabling one of his hands,” said Mohammad Esmail Zarei, secretary of the Foundation to Implement Imam Khomeini’s Fatwas.

“Rushdie is now no more than living dead and, to honour this brave action, about 1,000 square meters of agricultural land will be donated to the person or any of his legal representatives,” Zarei said. 

Rushdie earlier this month described Matar as an “idiot” in his first interview since the attack.

The attack came 33 years after Shi’ite Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa or religious edict calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie following the release of his novel “The Satanic Verses” which include some passages about the Prophet Muhammad.

Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri family, spent nine years in hiding under British police protection.

Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was suspended from Twitter in 2019 for saying the fatwa against Rushdie was “irrevocable”.