But the New York agreement is a blow in this struggle rather than an indication that the Khatami Government has won all its battles. The agreement comes just as Iran's own press, which was becoming more diverse and critical, is under attack at home. Several publications have been closed, there have been numerous arrests, and one official has even pronounced that erring journalists should be put to death. The Iranian parliament, the Majlis, has just called by a large majority for furthermeasures against the press.

The Iranian persecution of Rushdie has always been a part of the internal fight over literary freedom, and over more than that. Iranian writers, it is to be noted, never as a body condemned him. Naturally, this does not mean that all Iranian writers approved of The Satanic Verses. Some embrace the Western definition of free expression. Others, like Muslims abroad, have diverse views on Rushdie, on whether or not Khomeini was misled, and on the range and permanence of fatwas.

The broader Iranian political struggle is personal, factional and ideological, and it is deadly serious. It is not yet settled in favour of Khatami and the more democratic and flexible figures in the political and religious establishment, even though it is permissible to hope they will keep the upper hand.

The New York deal can be seen as showing that they are more on top than in the past. Equally, it can appear as part of a pattern in which antagonistic forces in Iran move from square tosquare on the political chessboard, winning a piece here, losing a piece there.

It is almost certain that Khatami's enemies will soon stage a provocation on the Rushdie issue. It could range from some minor uproar to a full-scale confrontation over press freedom. It is an indication of how volatile Iranians think the situation is that rumours are going round about possible attempts on Khatami's life. Some believe conservatives and moderates have struck a deal, to do with the need for Western understanding in the event of hostilities with Afghanistan or that sanctions will be lifted.

Yet in the past Iran's economic and political needs have not prevented the sabotage of policies aimed at mending fences with the West. This is one of the reasons why the world should be cautious in celebrating Rushdie's release from the invisible prison that he has endured for almost 10 years. Equally, to conclude that the full rapprochement between Iran and the West, to which the restoration of diplomatic relations betweenBritain and Iran seems to point, is just around the corner would be premature.

The West is stymied by Saddam Hussein's survival in Iraq, and concerned about the possibility of nuclear weapons competition in South Asia. It needs Iranian understanding if the Arab-Israeli peace process is ever to be put back on track. It faces the prospect of a regressive and dangerous regime in Afghanistan digging in for the long term on the basis of its huge income from trafficking in drugs, most of which go to Western countries. Pipelines through Iran might be the safest and best way to move Central Asian oil out of the region. None of these problems can be solved without Iranian participation. All of these issues are as important to Iran as they are to the West.

When is a fatwa not a fatwa?

You may not know this, but Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini never issued a real fatwa against Salman Rushdie. So says Iranian scholar Mehdi Mozaffari, whose latest book, Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy, analyses theroots and requirements of such pronouncements. Perhaps that would explain why the Iranian Government distanced itself last week from Khomeini's edict. On February 14, 1989, Khomeini gave the order, imposing a death sentence on Rushdie in a typewritten message that denounced Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses as blasphemous. But Khomeini's text did not use the word fatwa, according to Mozaffari, who published a copy of it in his book.

It was only three days later that a French expert on Islam, Olivier Roi, applied the word for the first time to Khomeini's order, as did French scholar Gilles Kippel soon afterward -- both in articles in the newspaper Le Monde -- Mozaffari said in a telephone interview from Denmark. Until then, no journalist or religious leader had mentioned it, he said. ``What is bizarre is that the West invented this word and then asked others to annul it,'' Mozaffari added.

Khomeini's command was not handwritten, signed or sealed, which is the format of otherfatwas he issued. As evidence, Mozaffari's book contains copies of two actual fatwas that were handwritten by Khomeini or his secretary, then signed and sealed. Although the Iranian leader's religious credentials qualified him as a ``fatwa-giver,'' other circumstances disqualified him.

``Someone who has political power cannot deliver a fatwa, even if he has all the qualifications,'' Mozaffari said. ``There is not one example in the whole history of Islam of a man of state who delivered a fatwa --not the prophet (Muhammad) or any of his immediate successors -- and for a good reason. You cannot exercise power and at the same time justify it by your own decrees or fatwas.''

It is rare that academics who take years to complete works of wisdom scoop the press, but Mozaffari, 58, did just that with his book, published last month. Mozaffari, a former lecturer and associate professor at the Sorbonne and Tehran University who now teaches political science at the Universityof Aarhus in Denmark, delved into the origins of religious edicts in Islam. The word fatwa never appears in the Koran, he said, but derivatives of the word appear nine times, and they indicate some kind of ``questioning or the pronouncement of an opinion.''

A fatwa is a judiciary verdict, not an act of law. ``It is the answer which a competent religious authority gives to the questioning of a point of Islamic law,'' said Mozaffari, who added that the Iranian Constitution -- approved by Khomeini himself -- bars leaders from pronouncing death sentences.

LA Times-Washington Post