Satanic Verses
Encyclopedia
The Satanic Verses was a purported incident where a small number of apparently pagan verses were temporarily included in the Qur'an
by the Islamic prophet Muhammad
, only to be later removed. Narratives derived from what scholars consider weak or doubtful hadith
involving these verses can be read in, among other places, the biographies of Muhammad
by al-Wāqidī
, Ibn Sa'd (who was a scribe of Waqidi), al-Tabarī
, and Ibn Ishaq
(the last as reconstructed by Alfred Guillaume
).
The first use of the expression 'Satanic Verses' is attributed to Sir William Muir
(1858).
to Islam
. As he was reciting Sūra an-Najm
, considered a revelation by the angel Gabriel
, Satan tempted him to utter the following lines after verses 19 and 20:
Allāt, al-'Uzzā and Manāt were three goddesses worshipped by the Meccans. Discerning the meaning of "gharāniq" is difficult as it is an hapax legomenon
. Commentators wrote that it meant the cranes
. The Arabic word does generally mean a "crane" - appearing in the singular as ghirnīq, ghurnūq, ghirnawq and ghurnayq, and the word has cousin forms in other words for birds, including "raven, crow" and "eagle".
The subtext to the event is that Muhammad was backing away from his otherwise uncompromising monotheism
by saying that these goddesses were real and their intercession effective. The Meccans were overjoyed to hear this and joined Muhammad in ritual prostration at the end of the sūrah. The Muslim refugees who had fled to Abyssinia heard of the end of persecution and started to return home. Islamic tradition holds that Gabriel chastised Muhammad for adulterating the revelation, at which point is revealed to comfort him,
Muhammad took back his words and the persecution by the Meccans resumed. Verses were given, in which the goddesses are belittled. The passage in question, from 53:19, reads:
and the sira-maghazi literature dating from the first two centuries of Islam, and is reported in the respective tafsīr corpuses transmitted from almost every Qur'anic commentator of note in the first two centuries of the hijra. It seems to have constituted a standard element in the memory of the early Muslim community about the life of Muhammad. The earliest biography of Muhammad, Ibn Ishaq
(761-767) is lost but his collection of traditions survives mainly in two sources: Ibn Hisham
(833) and al-Tabari (915). The story appears in al-Tabari, who includes Ibn Ishaq in the chain of transmission, but not in Ibn Hisham
. Ibn Sa'd and Al-Waqidi
, two other early biographers of Muhammad relate the story. Scholars such as Uri Rubin and Shahab Ahmed and Guillaume hold that the report was in Ibn Ishaq, while Alford T. Welch
holds the report has not been presumably present in the Ibn Ishaq.
compilations (though see below for possible truncated versions of the incident that did). The reference and exegesis
about the Verses appear in early histories. In addition to appearing in Tabarī's Tafsīr, it is used in the tafsīrs of Muqātil
, ‘Abdu r-Razzāq and Ibn Kathir
as well as the naskh
of Abu Ja‘far an-Nahhās, the asbāb
collection of Wāhidī and even the late-medieval as-Suyūtī's compilation al-Durr al-Manthūr fil-Tafsīr bil-Mathūr.
Objections to the incident were raised as early as the fourth Islamic century, such as in the work of an-Nahhās and continued to be raised throughout later generations by scholars such as Abu Bakr ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1157), Fakhr ad-Din Razi
(1220) as well as al-Qurtubi (1285). The most comprehensive argument presented against the factuality of the incident came in Qadi Iyad's ash-Shifa‘. The incident was discounted on two main bases. The first was that the incident contradicted the doctrine of isma‘, divine protection of Muhammad from mistakes. The second was that the descriptions of the chain of transmission extant since that period are not complete and sound (sahih). Ibn Kathir
points out in his commentary that the various isnads available to him by which the story was transmitted were almost all mursal, or without a companion of Muhammad in their chain. Uri Rubin
asserts that there exists a complete version of the isnad continuing to ibn ‘Abbās, but this only survives in a few sources. He claims that the name of ibn ‘Abbās was part of the original isnad, and was removed so that the incident could be deprived of its sahih isnad and discredited.
Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
commenting on Surah 22:52 in his Tafsir al-Kabir stated that the “people of verification” declared the story as an outright fabrication, citing supporting arguments from the Qur’an, Sunnah and reason. He then reported that the preeminent Muhaddith Ibn Khuzaymah
said: “it is an invention of the heretics” when once asked about it. Al-Razi also recorded that al-Bayhaqi stated that the narration of the story was unreliable because its narrators were of questionable integrity.
Those scholars who acknowledged the historicity of the incident apparently had a different method for the assessment of reports than that which has become standard Islamic methodology. For example, Ibn Taymiyya took the position that since tafsir and sira-maghazi reports were commonly transmitted by incomplete isnads, these reports should not be assessed according to the completeness of the chains but rather on the basis of recurrent transmission of common meaning between reports.
Al-Qurtubi (al-Jāmi' li ahkām al-Qur'ān) dismisses all these variants in favor of the explanation that once Sūra al-Najm was safely revealed the basic events of the incident (or rumors of them) "were now permitted to occur to identify those of his followers who would accept Muhammad's explanation of the blasphemous imposture" (JSS 15, pp. 254–255).
and Alfred Guillaume
claims that stories of the event were true based upon the implausibility of Muslims fabricating a story so unflattering to their prophet: "Muhammad must have publicly recited the satanic verses as part of the Qur'ān; it is unthinkable that the story could have been invented by Muslims, or foisted upon them by non-Muslims." This argument resembles the criterion of embarrassment
, an analytical tool used in assessing the historicity of Biblical accounts of Jesus, which holds that material that would seem to be "embarrassing" to scriptural figures such as Jesus but is nevertheless included in the canon is likely to be true.
Regarding the argument of implausibility of Muslims fabricating the story, Shahab Ahmed in the Encyclopedia of the Qur'an states that "the widespread acceptance of the incident by early Muslims suggests, however, that they did not view the incident as inauspicious and that they would presumably not have, on this basis at least, been adverse to inventing it." Alford T. Welch
, in the Encyclopedia of Islam, argues that this reason alone would be insufficient to assert its authenticity. He says that the story in its present form is certainly a later, exegetical fabrication despite the fact that there could be some historical basis for the story. Welch states that the story falsely claims that the chapter 53:1-20 and the end of the chapter are a unity, that the date for the verse 22:52 is later than 53:21-7, and almost certainly belongs to the Medinan period. Further several details in the setting of the story such as the mosque, the sajda do not belong to the Meccan phase of Muhammad's career. Welch also points out that the story was not mentioned in the Ibn Ishaq
's biography of Muhammad. He says that the above analysis does not rule out "the possibility of some historical kernel behind the story." One such possibility, Welch says, is that the story is of a historical telescoping nature: "that a situation that was known by Muhammad's contemporaries to have lasted for a long period of time later came to be encapsulated in a story that restricts his acceptance of intercession through these goddesses to a brief period of time and places the responsibility for this departure from a strict monotheism on Satan."
John Burton argued for its fictitiousness based upon a demonstration of its actual utility to certain elements of the Muslim community – namely, those legal exegetes seeking an "occasion of revelation" for eradicative modes of abrogation. Burton supports his theory by the fact that Tabari does not discuss the story in his exegesis of the verse 53:20, but rather in 22:52. Burton further notes that different versions of the story are all tracable to one single narrator Muhammad b. Ka'b, two generations removed from Ibn Ishaq, but not contemporary with the event. G.R. Hawting writes that the satanic verses incident would not serve to justify or exemplify a theory that God reveals something and later replaces it himself with another true revelation. Burton, in his rejection of the authenticity of the story, sided with L. Caetani, who wrote that the story was to be rejected not only on the basis of isnad, but because "had these hadiths even a degree of historical basis, Muhammad's reported conduct on this occasion would have given the lie to the whole of his previous prophetic activity."
Maxime Rodinson
finds that it may reasonably be accepted as true "because the makers of Muslim tradition would never have invented a story with such damaging implications for the revelation as a whole." He writes the following on the genesis of the verses: "Obviously Muhammad's unconscious had suggested to him a formula which provided a practical road to unanimity." Rodinson writes that this concession, however, diminished the threat of the Last Judgment
by enabling the daughters of Allah to intercede for sinners and save them from eternal damnation. Further, it diminished Muhammad's own authority by giving the priests of Uzza, Manat, and Allat the ability to pronounce oracles contradicting his message. Disparagement from Christians and Jews who pointed out that he was reverting to his pagan beginnings and rebelliousness and indignation from among his own followers influenced him to go back on his revelation. However, in doing so he denounced the gods of Mecca as lesser spirits or mere names, cast off everything related to the traditional religion as the work of pagans and unbelievers, and consigned the Meccan's pious ancestors and relatives to Hell. This was the final break with the Quraysh.
Fred Halliday
states that rather than having damaging implications, the story is a cautionary tale, the point of which is "not to malign God but to point up the frailty of human beings," and that even a prophet may be misled by shaytan — though ultimately shaytan is unsuccessful.
Since John Wansbrough
's contributions to the field in the early 1970s, though, scholars have become much more attentive to the emergent nature of early Islam, and less willing to accept back-projected claims of continuity:
In Rubin's recent contribution to the debate, questions of historicity are completely eschewed in favor of an examination of internal textual dynamics and what they reveal about early medieval Islam. Rubin claims to have located the genesis of many prophetic traditions and that they show an early Muslim desire to prove to other scriptuaries "that Muhammad did indeed belong to the same exclusive predestined chain of prophets in whom the Jews and the Christian
s believed. He alleges that the Muslims had to establish the story of Muhammad's life on the same literary patterns as were used in the vitae of the other prophets". The incident of the Satanic Verses, according to him, conforms to the common theme of persecution followed by isolation of the prophet-figure.
As the story was adapted to include Qur'ānic material (Q.22:50, Q.53, Q.17:73-74) the idea of satanic temptation was claimed to have been added, heightening its inherent drama as well as incorporating additional biblical motifs (cf. the Temptation of Christ
). Rubin gives his attention to the narratological
exigencies which may have shaped early sīra material as opposed to the more commonly considered ones of dogma, sect, or political/dynastic faction. Given the consensus that "the most archaic layer of the biography, [is] that of the stories of the kussās
[i.e. popular story-tellers]" (Sīra, EI
²), this may prove a fruitful line of inquiry.
Although there could be some historical basis for the story, in its present form it is certainly a later, exegetical fabrication. Sūra LIII, 1-20 and the end of the sūra are not a unity, as is claimed by the story; XXII, 52, is later than LIII, 21-7, and is almost certainly Medina
n (see Bell, Trans., 316, 322); and several details of the story- the mosque, the sajda, and others not mentioned in the short summary above- do not belong to a Meccan setting.
Rubin also claimed that the supposed temporary control taken by Satan over Muhammad made such traditions unacceptable to early hadith compilers, which he believed to be a unique case in which a group of traditions are rejected only after being subject to Qur'anic models, and as a direct result of this adjustment.
's article “Masʾalat al-gharānīq wa-tafsīr al-āyāt”, Muhammad Husayn Haykal
's "Hayat Muhammad", Sayyid Qutb
's "Fi Zilal al-Quran", Abul Ala Maududi
's "Tafhim al-Quran" and Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani's "Nasb al-majānīq li-nasf al-gharānīq". Haykal points out the many forms and versions of the story and their inconsistencies and argues that "the contextual flow of Surah 'al Najm' does not allow at all the inclusion of such verses as the story claims". Haykal quotes Muhammad Abduh
who pointed out that the "Arabs have nowhere described their gods in such terms as 'al gharaniq'. Neither in their poetry nor in their speeches or traditions do we find their gods or goddesses described in such terms. Rather, the word 'al ghurnuq' or 'al gharniq' was the name of a black or white water bird, sometimes given figuratively to the handsome blond youth." Lastly, Haykal argues that the story is inconsistent with Muhammad's personal life and is completely against the spirit of the Islamic message.
Aqa Mahdi Puya has said that these fake verses were shouted out by the Meccans to make it look like it was the prophet Muhammad who said it, he writes:
This entire matter was a mere footnote to the back-and-forth of religious debate, and was rekindled only when Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses
, made headline news. The novel contains some fictionalized allusions to Islamic history, which provoked both controversy and outrage. Muslims around the world protested the book's publishing, and Iran
's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa
sentencing Rushdie to death, saying that the book blasphemed Muhammad and his wives.
) they return home, but soon a second round begins. No compelling reason is provided for the caesura of persecution, though, unlike in the incident of the satanic verses, where it is the (temporary) fruit of Muhammad's accommodation to Meccan polytheism. Another version attributed to 'Urwa has only one round of fitna, which begins after Muhammad has converted the entire population of Mecca, so that the Muslims are too numerous to perform ritual prostration (sūjud) all together. This somewhat parallels the Muslims and mushrikūn prostrating themselves together after Muhammad's first, allegedly satanically infected, recitation of Sūra al-Najm, in which the efficacy of the three pagan goddesses is acknowledged (Rubin, pp. 157–158).
The image of Muslims and pagans prostrating themselves together in prayer in turn links the story of the satanic verses to very abbreviated sūjud al-Qur'ān (i.e. prostration when reciting the Qur'ān) traditions found in the authoritative mussanaf hadīth collections, including the Sunni canonical ones of Bukhāri and Tirmidhī. Rubin claims that apparently "the allusion to the participation of the mushrikūn emphasises how overwhelming and intense the effect of this sūra was on those attending. The traditions actually state that all cognizant creatures took part in it, humans as well as jinns.
Rubin further argues that this is inherently illogical without the Satanic Verses in the recitation, given that in the accepted version of verses Q.53:19-23, the pagans' goddesses are attacked. The majority of traditions relating to prostration at the end of Sūra al-Najm solve this by either removing all mention of the mushrikūn, or else transforming the attempt of an old Meccan to participate (who, instead of bowing to the ground instead puts dirt to his forehead proclaiming "This is sufficient for me") into an act of mockery. Some traditions even describe his eventual comeuppance, saying he is later killed at the battle of Badr
.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/019.sbt.html Thus, according to Rubin, "the story of the single polytheist who raised a handful of dirt to his forehead… [in]… attempt of an old disabled man to participate in Muhammad's sūjud… in… a sarcastic act of an enemy of Muhammad wishing to dishonor the Islamic prayer". And "traditions which originally related the dramatic story of temptation became a sterilized anecdote providing prophetic precedent for a ritual practice".
history, the Ta'rīkh (Vol. I):
However in the introduction of his book he states:
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
by the Islamic prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, only to be later removed. Narratives derived from what scholars consider weak or doubtful hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
involving these verses can be read in, among other places, the biographies of Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
by al-Wāqidī
Al-Waqidi
Abu `Abdullah Muhammad Ibn ‘Omar Ibn Waqid al-Aslami , commonly referred to as al-Waqidi , was an early Muslim historian.He was born and educated in Medina...
, Ibn Sa'd (who was a scribe of Waqidi), al-Tabarī
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...
, and Ibn Ishaq
Ibn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...
(the last as reconstructed by Alfred Guillaume
Alfred Guillaume
Alfred Guillaume was an Arabist and Islamic scholar.-Career:Guillaume took up Arabic after studying Theology and Oriental Languages at the University of Oxford. In the First World War he served in France and then in the Arab Bureau in Cairo...
).
The first use of the expression 'Satanic Verses' is attributed to Sir William Muir
William Muir
Sir William Muir, KCSI was a Scottish Orientalist and colonial administrator.-Life:He was born at Glasgow and educated at Kilmarnock Academy, at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, and at Haileybury College. In 1837 he entered the Bengal Civil Service...
(1858).
Basic narrative
There are numerous accounts reporting the incident, which differ in the construction and detail of the narrative, but they may be broadly collated to produce a basic account. The different versions of the story are all tracable to one single narrator Muhammad b. Ka'b, who was two generations removed from biographer Ibn Ishaq. In its essential form, the story reports that Muhammad longed to convert his kinsmen and neighbors of MeccaMecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. As he was reciting Sūra an-Najm
An-Najm
- Summary of the line 1-12 :The first eighteen verses of this sura are considered to be some of the earliest revelations of the Qur'an. These verses address the legitimacy of Muhammad’s prophetic visions. The sura begins with the divine voice swearing by the collapsing star that “Your companion,”...
, considered a revelation by the angel Gabriel
Gabriel
In Abrahamic religions, Gabriel is an Archangel who typically serves as a messenger to humans from God.He first appears in the Book of Daniel, delivering explanations of Daniel's visions. In the Gospel of Luke Gabriel foretells the births of both John the Baptist and of Jesus...
, Satan tempted him to utter the following lines after verses 19 and 20:
Have ye thought upon Al-LatAllāt' or ' was a Pre-Islamic Arabian goddess who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. She is mentioned in the Qur'an , which indicates that pre-Islamic Arabs considered her as one of the daughters of Allah along with Manāt and al-‘Uzzá....
and Al-‘Uzzá
and ManātManatManat may refer to* Azerbaijani manat, unit of currency in Azerbaijan* Turkmenistani manat, unit of currency in Turkmenistan* The designation of the Soviet ruble in both Azerbaijani and Turkmen* Manāt, the goddess of fate and destiny in pre-Islamic Arabia...
, the third, the other?These are the exalted gharāniq, whose intercession is hoped for.
Allāt, al-'Uzzā and Manāt were three goddesses worshipped by the Meccans. Discerning the meaning of "gharāniq" is difficult as it is an hapax legomenon
Hapax legomenon
A hapax legomenon is a word which occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or just in a single text. The term is sometimes used incorrectly to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author's works, even though it...
. Commentators wrote that it meant the cranes
Crane (bird)
Cranes are a family, Gruidae, of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the order Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back...
. The Arabic word does generally mean a "crane" - appearing in the singular as ghirnīq, ghurnūq, ghirnawq and ghurnayq, and the word has cousin forms in other words for birds, including "raven, crow" and "eagle".
The subtext to the event is that Muhammad was backing away from his otherwise uncompromising monotheism
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
by saying that these goddesses were real and their intercession effective. The Meccans were overjoyed to hear this and joined Muhammad in ritual prostration at the end of the sūrah. The Muslim refugees who had fled to Abyssinia heard of the end of persecution and started to return home. Islamic tradition holds that Gabriel chastised Muhammad for adulterating the revelation, at which point is revealed to comfort him,
Never sent We a messenger or a prophet before thee but when He recited (the message) Satan proposed (opposition) in respect of that which he recited thereof. But Allah abolisheth that which Satan proposeth. Then Allah establisheth His revelations. Allah is Knower, Wise.
Muhammad took back his words and the persecution by the Meccans resumed. Verses were given, in which the goddesses are belittled. The passage in question, from 53:19, reads:
Have ye thought upon Al-Lat and Al-'Uzza
And Manat, the third, the other?
Are yours the males and His the females?
That indeed were an unfair division!
They are but names which ye have named, ye and your fathers, for which Allah hath revealed no warrant. They follow but a guess and that which (they) themselves desire. And now the guidance from their Lord hath come unto them.
In early Islam
The Satanic Verses incident is reported in the tafsirTafsir
Tafseer is the Arabic word for exegesis or commentary, usually of the Qur'an. Ta'wīl is a subset of tafsir and refers to esoteric or mystical interpretation. An author of tafsir is a mufassir .- Etymology :...
and the sira-maghazi literature dating from the first two centuries of Islam, and is reported in the respective tafsīr corpuses transmitted from almost every Qur'anic commentator of note in the first two centuries of the hijra. It seems to have constituted a standard element in the memory of the early Muslim community about the life of Muhammad. The earliest biography of Muhammad, Ibn Ishaq
Ibn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...
(761-767) is lost but his collection of traditions survives mainly in two sources: Ibn Hisham
Ibn Hisham
Abu Muhammad 'Abd al-Malik bin Hisham , or Ibn Hisham edited the biography of Muhammad written by Ibn Ishaq. Ibn Ishaq's work is lost and is now only known in the recensions of Ibn Hisham and al-Tabari. Ibn Hisham grew up in Basra, Iraq, but moved afterwards to Egypt, where he gained a name...
(833) and al-Tabari (915). The story appears in al-Tabari, who includes Ibn Ishaq in the chain of transmission, but not in Ibn Hisham
Ibn Hisham
Abu Muhammad 'Abd al-Malik bin Hisham , or Ibn Hisham edited the biography of Muhammad written by Ibn Ishaq. Ibn Ishaq's work is lost and is now only known in the recensions of Ibn Hisham and al-Tabari. Ibn Hisham grew up in Basra, Iraq, but moved afterwards to Egypt, where he gained a name...
. Ibn Sa'd and Al-Waqidi
Al-Waqidi
Abu `Abdullah Muhammad Ibn ‘Omar Ibn Waqid al-Aslami , commonly referred to as al-Waqidi , was an early Muslim historian.He was born and educated in Medina...
, two other early biographers of Muhammad relate the story. Scholars such as Uri Rubin and Shahab Ahmed and Guillaume hold that the report was in Ibn Ishaq, while Alford T. Welch
Alford T. Welch
Alford T. Welch is a Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University. Welch got his Ph.D. degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Edinburgh in 1970. He also holds a M.Div. degree on Biblical language, literature and Near Eastern history from Southern Baptist...
holds the report has not been presumably present in the Ibn Ishaq.
Transmission of the narrative
Due to its defective chain of narration, the tradition of the Satanic Verses never made it into any of the canonical hadithHadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
compilations (though see below for possible truncated versions of the incident that did). The reference and exegesis
Exegesis
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...
about the Verses appear in early histories. In addition to appearing in Tabarī's Tafsīr, it is used in the tafsīrs of Muqātil
Muqatil ibn sulayman
Muqatil ibn Sulayman al-Balkhi was a 8th-century Sunni mufassir of the Quran.Ibn Sa'd's complete biography of Muqatil is "The one who had a tafsir, He related from al-Dahhak ibn Muzahim and Ata ibn Abi Rabah, students of Ibn Abbas...
, ‘Abdu r-Razzāq and Ibn Kathir
Ibn Kathir
Ismail ibn Kathir was a Muslim muhaddith, Faqih, historian, and commentator.-Biography:His full name was Abu Al-Fida, 'Imad Ad-Din, Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir, Al-Qurashi, Al-Busrawi...
as well as the naskh
Naskh (exegesis)
Naskh is an Arabic language word usually translated as "abrogation"; it shares the same root as the words appearing in the phrase al-nāsikh wal-mansūkh...
of Abu Ja‘far an-Nahhās, the asbāb
Asbab al-nuzul
Asbāb al-nuzūl , an Arabic term meaning "occasions/circumstances of revelation", is a secondary genre of Qur'anic exegesis directed at establishing the context in which specific verses of the Qur'an were revealed...
collection of Wāhidī and even the late-medieval as-Suyūtī's compilation al-Durr al-Manthūr fil-Tafsīr bil-Mathūr.
Objections to the incident were raised as early as the fourth Islamic century, such as in the work of an-Nahhās and continued to be raised throughout later generations by scholars such as Abu Bakr ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1157), Fakhr ad-Din Razi
Al-Razi
Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī , known as Rhazes or Rasis after medieval Latinists, was a Persian polymath,a prominent figure in Islamic Golden Age, physician, alchemist and chemist, philosopher, and scholar....
(1220) as well as al-Qurtubi (1285). The most comprehensive argument presented against the factuality of the incident came in Qadi Iyad's ash-Shifa‘. The incident was discounted on two main bases. The first was that the incident contradicted the doctrine of isma‘, divine protection of Muhammad from mistakes. The second was that the descriptions of the chain of transmission extant since that period are not complete and sound (sahih). Ibn Kathir
Ibn Kathir
Ismail ibn Kathir was a Muslim muhaddith, Faqih, historian, and commentator.-Biography:His full name was Abu Al-Fida, 'Imad Ad-Din, Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir, Al-Qurashi, Al-Busrawi...
points out in his commentary that the various isnads available to him by which the story was transmitted were almost all mursal, or without a companion of Muhammad in their chain. Uri Rubin
Uri Rubin
Uri Rubin a Professor in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Tel-Aviv University in Israel. His areas of research are early Islam, with special emphasis on Qur'an, Qur'an Exegesis , and early Islamic tradition .Prof...
asserts that there exists a complete version of the isnad continuing to ibn ‘Abbās, but this only survives in a few sources. He claims that the name of ibn ‘Abbās was part of the original isnad, and was removed so that the incident could be deprived of its sahih isnad and discredited.
Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Umar ibn al-Husayn al-Taymi al-Bakri al-Tabaristani Fakhr al-Din al-Razi , most commonly known as Fakhruddin Razi was a well-known Persian Sunni Muslim theologian and philosopher....
commenting on Surah 22:52 in his Tafsir al-Kabir stated that the “people of verification” declared the story as an outright fabrication, citing supporting arguments from the Qur’an, Sunnah and reason. He then reported that the preeminent Muhaddith Ibn Khuzaymah
Ibn Khuzaymah
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Khuzaymah was a prominent Muslim hadith and Shafi'i fiqh scholar best known for his hadith collection, Sahih Ibn Khuzaymah.- Biography :...
said: “it is an invention of the heretics” when once asked about it. Al-Razi also recorded that al-Bayhaqi stated that the narration of the story was unreliable because its narrators were of questionable integrity.
Those scholars who acknowledged the historicity of the incident apparently had a different method for the assessment of reports than that which has become standard Islamic methodology. For example, Ibn Taymiyya took the position that since tafsir and sira-maghazi reports were commonly transmitted by incomplete isnads, these reports should not be assessed according to the completeness of the chains but rather on the basis of recurrent transmission of common meaning between reports.
Al-Qurtubi (al-Jāmi' li ahkām al-Qur'ān) dismisses all these variants in favor of the explanation that once Sūra al-Najm was safely revealed the basic events of the incident (or rumors of them) "were now permitted to occur to identify those of his followers who would accept Muhammad's explanation of the blasphemous imposture" (JSS 15, pp. 254–255).
Views
The verses are seen as problematic to many Muslims as they are "profoundly heretical because, by allowing for the intercession of the three pagan female deities, they eroded the authority and omnipotence of Allah. But they also hold... damaging implications in regard to the revelation as a whole, for Muhammad’s revelation appears to have been based on his desire to soften the threat to the deities of the people." Different responses have developed concerning the account.Non-Muslim scholars' views
Since William Muir the historicity of this episode has been largely accepted by orientalists. William Montgomery WattWilliam Montgomery Watt
William Montgomery Watt was a Scottish historian, an Emeritus Professor in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh...
and Alfred Guillaume
Alfred Guillaume
Alfred Guillaume was an Arabist and Islamic scholar.-Career:Guillaume took up Arabic after studying Theology and Oriental Languages at the University of Oxford. In the First World War he served in France and then in the Arab Bureau in Cairo...
claims that stories of the event were true based upon the implausibility of Muslims fabricating a story so unflattering to their prophet: "Muhammad must have publicly recited the satanic verses as part of the Qur'ān; it is unthinkable that the story could have been invented by Muslims, or foisted upon them by non-Muslims." This argument resembles the criterion of embarrassment
Criterion of embarrassment
The criterion of embarrassment, also known as criterion of dissimilarity, is a critical analysis of historical accounts in which accounts embarrassing to the author are presumed to be true because the author would have no reason to invent an embarrassing account about himself...
, an analytical tool used in assessing the historicity of Biblical accounts of Jesus, which holds that material that would seem to be "embarrassing" to scriptural figures such as Jesus but is nevertheless included in the canon is likely to be true.
Regarding the argument of implausibility of Muslims fabricating the story, Shahab Ahmed in the Encyclopedia of the Qur'an states that "the widespread acceptance of the incident by early Muslims suggests, however, that they did not view the incident as inauspicious and that they would presumably not have, on this basis at least, been adverse to inventing it." Alford T. Welch
Alford T. Welch
Alford T. Welch is a Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University. Welch got his Ph.D. degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Edinburgh in 1970. He also holds a M.Div. degree on Biblical language, literature and Near Eastern history from Southern Baptist...
, in the Encyclopedia of Islam, argues that this reason alone would be insufficient to assert its authenticity. He says that the story in its present form is certainly a later, exegetical fabrication despite the fact that there could be some historical basis for the story. Welch states that the story falsely claims that the chapter 53:1-20 and the end of the chapter are a unity, that the date for the verse 22:52 is later than 53:21-7, and almost certainly belongs to the Medinan period. Further several details in the setting of the story such as the mosque, the sajda do not belong to the Meccan phase of Muhammad's career. Welch also points out that the story was not mentioned in the Ibn Ishaq
Ibn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...
's biography of Muhammad. He says that the above analysis does not rule out "the possibility of some historical kernel behind the story." One such possibility, Welch says, is that the story is of a historical telescoping nature: "that a situation that was known by Muhammad's contemporaries to have lasted for a long period of time later came to be encapsulated in a story that restricts his acceptance of intercession through these goddesses to a brief period of time and places the responsibility for this departure from a strict monotheism on Satan."
John Burton argued for its fictitiousness based upon a demonstration of its actual utility to certain elements of the Muslim community – namely, those legal exegetes seeking an "occasion of revelation" for eradicative modes of abrogation. Burton supports his theory by the fact that Tabari does not discuss the story in his exegesis of the verse 53:20, but rather in 22:52. Burton further notes that different versions of the story are all tracable to one single narrator Muhammad b. Ka'b, two generations removed from Ibn Ishaq, but not contemporary with the event. G.R. Hawting writes that the satanic verses incident would not serve to justify or exemplify a theory that God reveals something and later replaces it himself with another true revelation. Burton, in his rejection of the authenticity of the story, sided with L. Caetani, who wrote that the story was to be rejected not only on the basis of isnad, but because "had these hadiths even a degree of historical basis, Muhammad's reported conduct on this occasion would have given the lie to the whole of his previous prophetic activity."
Maxime Rodinson
Maxime Rodinson
Maxime Rodinson was a French Marxist historian, sociologist and orientalist. He was the son of a Russian-Polish clothing trader and his wife who both died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. After studying oriental languages, he became a professor of Ethiopian at EPHE...
finds that it may reasonably be accepted as true "because the makers of Muslim tradition would never have invented a story with such damaging implications for the revelation as a whole." He writes the following on the genesis of the verses: "Obviously Muhammad's unconscious had suggested to him a formula which provided a practical road to unanimity." Rodinson writes that this concession, however, diminished the threat of the Last Judgment
Qiyamah
In Islam, Yawm al-Qiyāmah or Yawm ad-Din is believed to be God's final assessment of humanity as it exists. The sequence of events is the annihilation of all creatures allowable, resurrection of the body, and the judgment of all sentient creatures.The exact time when these events are to occur...
by enabling the daughters of Allah to intercede for sinners and save them from eternal damnation. Further, it diminished Muhammad's own authority by giving the priests of Uzza, Manat, and Allat the ability to pronounce oracles contradicting his message. Disparagement from Christians and Jews who pointed out that he was reverting to his pagan beginnings and rebelliousness and indignation from among his own followers influenced him to go back on his revelation. However, in doing so he denounced the gods of Mecca as lesser spirits or mere names, cast off everything related to the traditional religion as the work of pagans and unbelievers, and consigned the Meccan's pious ancestors and relatives to Hell. This was the final break with the Quraysh.
Fred Halliday
Fred Halliday
Frederick Halliday, FBA was an Irish writer and academic specialising in International Relations and the Middle East, with particular reference to the Cold War, Iran, and the Arabian peninsula.-Biography:Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1946 to an English father, businessman Arthur Halliday, and an...
states that rather than having damaging implications, the story is a cautionary tale, the point of which is "not to malign God but to point up the frailty of human beings," and that even a prophet may be misled by shaytan — though ultimately shaytan is unsuccessful.
Since John Wansbrough
John Wansbrough
John Edward Wansbrough was an American historian who taught at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies . Wansbrough's emphasis was on the critique of traditional accounts of the origins of Islam...
's contributions to the field in the early 1970s, though, scholars have become much more attentive to the emergent nature of early Islam, and less willing to accept back-projected claims of continuity:
To those who see the tradition as constantly evolving and supplying answers to question that it itself has raised, the argument that there would be no reason to develop and transmit material which seems derogatory of the Prophet or of Islam is too simple. For one thing, ideas about what is derogatory may change over time. We know that the doctrine of the Prophet's infallibility and impeccability (the doctrine regarding his 'ismaIsmah‘Iṣmah or ‘Isma is the concept of infallibility or "divinely bestowed freedom from error and sin" in Islam. Muslims believe that Muhammad and other prophets in Islam possessed ‘iṣmah. Twelver and Ismaili Shia Muslims also attribute the quality to Imāms and Fatima Zahra, daughter of Muhammad...
) emerged only slowly. For another, material which we now find in the biography of the Prophet originated in various circumstances to meet various needs and one has to understand why material exists before one can make a judgment about its basis in fact...
In Rubin's recent contribution to the debate, questions of historicity are completely eschewed in favor of an examination of internal textual dynamics and what they reveal about early medieval Islam. Rubin claims to have located the genesis of many prophetic traditions and that they show an early Muslim desire to prove to other scriptuaries "that Muhammad did indeed belong to the same exclusive predestined chain of prophets in whom the Jews and the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s believed. He alleges that the Muslims had to establish the story of Muhammad's life on the same literary patterns as were used in the vitae of the other prophets". The incident of the Satanic Verses, according to him, conforms to the common theme of persecution followed by isolation of the prophet-figure.
As the story was adapted to include Qur'ānic material (Q.22:50, Q.53, Q.17:73-74) the idea of satanic temptation was claimed to have been added, heightening its inherent drama as well as incorporating additional biblical motifs (cf. the Temptation of Christ
Temptation of Christ
The temptation of Christ is detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the Judean desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him...
). Rubin gives his attention to the narratological
Narratology
Narratology denotes both the theory and the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect our perception. While in principle the word may refer to any systematic study of narrative, in practice its usage is rather more restricted. It is an anglicisation of French...
exigencies which may have shaped early sīra material as opposed to the more commonly considered ones of dogma, sect, or political/dynastic faction. Given the consensus that "the most archaic layer of the biography, [is] that of the stories of the kussās
Qass
Qass is a village in the Zaqatala Rayon of Azerbaijan....
[i.e. popular story-tellers]" (Sīra, EI
Encyclopaedia of Islam
The Encyclopaedia of Islam is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies. It embraces articles on distinguished Muslims of every age and land, on tribes and dynasties, on the crafts and sciences, on political and religious institutions, on the geography, ethnography, flora and...
²), this may prove a fruitful line of inquiry.
Although there could be some historical basis for the story, in its present form it is certainly a later, exegetical fabrication. Sūra LIII, 1-20 and the end of the sūra are not a unity, as is claimed by the story; XXII, 52, is later than LIII, 21-7, and is almost certainly Medina
Medina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
n (see Bell, Trans., 316, 322); and several details of the story- the mosque, the sajda, and others not mentioned in the short summary above- do not belong to a Meccan setting.
- Kur'ān, Encyclopaedia of IslamEncyclopaedia of IslamThe Encyclopaedia of Islam is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies. It embraces articles on distinguished Muslims of every age and land, on tribes and dynasties, on the crafts and sciences, on political and religious institutions, on the geography, ethnography, flora and...
(EI)²
Rubin also claimed that the supposed temporary control taken by Satan over Muhammad made such traditions unacceptable to early hadith compilers, which he believed to be a unique case in which a group of traditions are rejected only after being subject to Qur'anic models, and as a direct result of this adjustment.
Modern Muslim scholars' views
Almost all modern Muslim scholars have rejected the story. Proposed arguments against the historicity of the incident can be found in Muhammad AbduhMuhammad Abduh
Muhammad Abduh was an Egyptian jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer, regarded as the founder of Islamic Modernism...
's article “Masʾalat al-gharānīq wa-tafsīr al-āyāt”, Muhammad Husayn Haykal
Muhammad Husayn Haykal
Muhammad Hussein Haekal was an Egyptian writer, journalist, politician and Minister of Education in Egypt.- Life :...
's "Hayat Muhammad", Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamist theorist, poet, and the leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s....
's "Fi Zilal al-Quran", Abul Ala Maududi
Abul Ala Maududi
Syed Abul A'ala Maududi , also known as Molana or Shaikh Syed Abul A'ala Mawdudi, was a Sunni Pakistani journalist, theologian, Muslim revivalist leader and political philosopher, and a major 20th century Islamist thinker. He was also a prominent political figure in Pakistan and was the first...
's "Tafhim al-Quran" and Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani's "Nasb al-majānīq li-nasf al-gharānīq". Haykal points out the many forms and versions of the story and their inconsistencies and argues that "the contextual flow of Surah 'al Najm' does not allow at all the inclusion of such verses as the story claims". Haykal quotes Muhammad Abduh
Muhammad Abduh
Muhammad Abduh was an Egyptian jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer, regarded as the founder of Islamic Modernism...
who pointed out that the "Arabs have nowhere described their gods in such terms as 'al gharaniq'. Neither in their poetry nor in their speeches or traditions do we find their gods or goddesses described in such terms. Rather, the word 'al ghurnuq' or 'al gharniq' was the name of a black or white water bird, sometimes given figuratively to the handsome blond youth." Lastly, Haykal argues that the story is inconsistent with Muhammad's personal life and is completely against the spirit of the Islamic message.
Aqa Mahdi Puya has said that these fake verses were shouted out by the Meccans to make it look like it was the prophet Muhammad who said it, he writes:
Some pagans and hypocrites planned secretly to recite words praising idolatry alongside the recitation of the Holy Prophet, while he was praying, in such a way that the people would think as if they were recited by him. Once when the Holy Prophet was reciting verses 19 and 20 of Najm one of the pagans recited: "Tilkal gharani-ul ula wa inna shafa-atahuma laturja"-(These are the lofty (idols), verily their intercession is sought after.) As soon as this was recited the conspirators shouted in delight to make the people believe that it was the Holy Prophet who said these words. Here, the Quran is stating the general pattern the enemies of the messengers of Allah followed when they were positively convinced that the people were paying attention to the teachings of the messengers of Allah and sincerely believing in them. They would mix their false doctrines with the original teachings so as to make the divine message a bundle of contradictions. This kind of satanic insertions are referred to in thus verse, and it is supported by Ha Mim: 26. It is sheer blasphemy to say that satanic forces can influence the messengers of Allah.
This entire matter was a mere footnote to the back-and-forth of religious debate, and was rekindled only when Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters...
, made headline news. The novel contains some fictionalized allusions to Islamic history, which provoked both controversy and outrage. Muslims around the world protested the book's publishing, and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa
Fatwa
A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...
sentencing Rushdie to death, saying that the book blasphemed Muhammad and his wives.
Related traditions
Several related traditions exist, some adapted to Qur'ānic material, some not. One version, appearing in Tabarī's Tafsīr and attributed to Urwah ibn Zubayr (d. 713), preserves the basic narrative but with no mention of satanic temptation. Muhammad is persecuted by the Meccans after attacking their idols, during which time a group of Muslims seeks refuge in Abyssinia. After the cessation of this first round of persecution (fitnaFitna
Fitna is an Arabic word with connotations of secession, upheaval and chaos. It is widely used in Arabic daily language as an adjective refers to "causing problems between people" or attempt to create chaotic situation that tests one's faith. Although, the translation of this word often become a...
) they return home, but soon a second round begins. No compelling reason is provided for the caesura of persecution, though, unlike in the incident of the satanic verses, where it is the (temporary) fruit of Muhammad's accommodation to Meccan polytheism. Another version attributed to 'Urwa has only one round of fitna, which begins after Muhammad has converted the entire population of Mecca, so that the Muslims are too numerous to perform ritual prostration (sūjud) all together. This somewhat parallels the Muslims and mushrikūn prostrating themselves together after Muhammad's first, allegedly satanically infected, recitation of Sūra al-Najm, in which the efficacy of the three pagan goddesses is acknowledged (Rubin, pp. 157–158).
The image of Muslims and pagans prostrating themselves together in prayer in turn links the story of the satanic verses to very abbreviated sūjud al-Qur'ān (i.e. prostration when reciting the Qur'ān) traditions found in the authoritative mussanaf hadīth collections, including the Sunni canonical ones of Bukhāri and Tirmidhī. Rubin claims that apparently "the allusion to the participation of the mushrikūn emphasises how overwhelming and intense the effect of this sūra was on those attending. The traditions actually state that all cognizant creatures took part in it, humans as well as jinns.
Rubin further argues that this is inherently illogical without the Satanic Verses in the recitation, given that in the accepted version of verses Q.53:19-23, the pagans' goddesses are attacked. The majority of traditions relating to prostration at the end of Sūra al-Najm solve this by either removing all mention of the mushrikūn, or else transforming the attempt of an old Meccan to participate (who, instead of bowing to the ground instead puts dirt to his forehead proclaiming "This is sufficient for me") into an act of mockery. Some traditions even describe his eventual comeuppance, saying he is later killed at the battle of Badr
Battle of Badr
The Battle of Badr , fought Saturday, March 13, 624 AD in the Hejaz region of western Arabia , was a key battle in the early days of Islam and a turning point in Muhammad's struggle with his opponents among the Quraish in Mecca...
.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/019.sbt.html Thus, according to Rubin, "the story of the single polytheist who raised a handful of dirt to his forehead… [in]… attempt of an old disabled man to participate in Muhammad's sūjud… in… a sarcastic act of an enemy of Muhammad wishing to dishonor the Islamic prayer". And "traditions which originally related the dramatic story of temptation became a sterilized anecdote providing prophetic precedent for a ritual practice".
Tabarī's account
An extensive account of the incident is found in al-Tabāri'sMuhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...
history, the Ta'rīkh (Vol. I):
However in the introduction of his book he states:
See also
- Demolition of al-UzzaExpedition of Khalid ibn al-Walid (Nakhla)The expedition of Khalid ibn al-Walid to Nakhla took place in January 630 AD, 8AH, in the 9th month of the Islamic Calendar.Khalid ibn al-Walid was sent to destroy the idol Goddess al-Uzza which was worshipped by polytheists; he did this successfully, and also killed a woman, whom Muhammad claimed...
- Demolition of ManatRaid of Sa'd ibn Zaid al-AshhaliRaid of Sa'd ibn Zaid al-Ashhali, took place in January 630 AD, 8AH, 9th month, of the Islamic Calendar, in the vicinity of al-Mushallal. Sa'd ibn Zaid al-Ashhali was sent to demolish the idols worshipped by the polytheist tribes around the area....
- Criticism of the Qur'anCriticism of the Qur'anWhile the Qur'an is the scriptural foundation of most forms of Islam criticism of the Qur'an has frequently occurred. Critics have made allegations of scientific, theological, and historical errors, claims of contradictions in the Qur'an and criticisms of the Qur'an's moral values.-Historical...
- HadithHadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
- SiraSiraThe sīrat rasūl allāh or al-sīra al-nabawiyya or just al-sīra, is the Arabic term used for the various traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad from which, in addition to the Qur'an and Hadith, most historical information about his life and the early period of Islam is derived.-Etymology:In the...
Commentators
- "Those Are The High Flying Claims" (Refutation of the Christian missionary writings on the so-called "Satanic verses")
- The Story of the Goddesses
- The "Satanic Verses" story was never taken seriously by Islamic scholars
- Muhammad: The man and the message