Satanic Verses (Gharaniq Incident): Difference between revisions

The''' Satanic Verses''' (also the حديثة الغرانيق ''Gharaniq incident'') was an incident where Prophet [[Muhammad]] reportedly acknowledged Allat, Manat, and al-Uzza, three deities or angels of the [[Pre-Islamic Arab Religion in Islam|Pagan]] Meccans in a [[Qur'an|Qur'anic]] [[revelation]], only to later recant and claim they were the words of the Devil.

{{Quran-range|53|19|20}} mentions their names: "So have you considered al-Lat and al-'Uzza? And Manat, the third - the other one?". One day when reciting these verses in the presence of the Meccan disbelievers while eager to gain acceptance from them, Muhammad reportedly succumbed to temptation from Satan, adding a verse, "They are the exhalted ''gharaniq'' whose intercession is to be hoped for". Gharaniq is thought to mean cranes (the bird), though some interpret it simply to mean female deities or angels.  

The report was apparently uncontroversial in the early centuries of Islam, though widely rejected by later Muslim scholars. Modern academic scholars today also generally reject the story, at least in terms of detail, though most agree that an interpolation of verses has occured at almost the same point in the surah.

Among the sira literature to record the story are four early major [[Sirat Rasul Allah|biographies of Muhammad]]; al-Waqidi,<ref name="Uri">Rubin, Uri (14 August 2008), "[http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=q3_COM-00126 Muhammad]", in Dammen McAuliffe, Jane, ''Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān'', Georgetown University, Washington DC: Brill</ref> Ibn Saad,<ref>Ibn Sa'd's "Kitab al Tabaqat al Kabir" (Book of the Major Classes), Volume 1, parts 1 and 2, pp. 236 - 239, translated by S. Moinul Haq, published by the Pakistan Historical Society.</ref> al-[[Tabari]],<ref>Al-Tabari (838? – 923 A.D.), The History of al-Tabari (Ta’rikh al-rusul wa’l-muluk), Vol. VI: Muhammad at Mecca, pp. 107-112. Translated by W. M. Watt and M.V. McDonald, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1988, ISBN: 0-88706-707-7, pp. 107-112.</ref> and Ibn Ishaq.<ref>Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, Translated by A. Guillaume, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, (Re-issued in Karachi, Pakistan, 1967, 13th impression, 1998) 1955, p. 146-148.</ref> In [[Sahih]] Bukhari and other major hadith collections, it is recorded that Muhammad performed a prostration when he finished reciting Surat-an-Najm, and all the Muslims and pagans prostrated, though the Satanic verses are not mentioned.<ref>"''Narrated Ibn Abbas: The Prophet performed a prostration when he finished reciting Surat-an-Najm, and all the Muslims and pagans and Jinns and human beings prostrated along with him.''" - {{Bukhari|6|60|385}}</ref> Another version includes the element in which one man puts dust to his forehead instead of prostrating, though here it is portrayed as an act of disrespect instead of infirmity.<ref>"'' Narrated `Abdullah bin Mas`ud: The Prophet (ﷺ) recited Surat-an-Najm (53) and prostrated while reciting it and all the people prostrated and a man amongst the people took a handful of stones or earth and raised it to his face and said, "This is sufficient for me. Later on I saw him killed as a non-believer."''" - {{Bukhari|2|19|176}}</ref> Professor Sean W. Anthony writes that these are truncated versions of the story with the Satanic verse elements expurgated, though that foundational narrative remains their implicit context.<ref name="Anthony2019">{{Cite journal |last=Anthony |first=Sean W. |date=2019 |title=The Satanic Verses in Early Shiʿite Literature: A Minority Report on Shahab Ahmed’s Before Orthodoxy |url=https://www.academia.edu/38941116/_The_Satanic_Verses_in_Early_Shi%CA%BFite_Literature_A_Minority_Report_on_Shahab_Ahmed_s_Before_Orthodoxy_Shii_Studies_Review_3_2019_215_252 |journal=Shii Studies Review |volume=3 |pages=226-27.}}</ref>  

Some of these scholars have proposed theories as to why such a story may have been concocted (Rubin; Burton). Anthony himself agrees with Rubin that earlier traditions attributed to ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr about the mass conversion of the Meccans but which do not mention the satanic verses were at a later stage elaborated using elements from the Quran (and presented as the occasion of revelation for Q. 22:52): {{Quran|22|52}} itself which mentions Satan throwing words into the mouths of previous prophets; {{Quran-range|53|19|20}} which mentions the three female deities; and {{Quran-range|17|73|74}} which mentions that the Meccans tried to tempt Muhammad into attributing false words to Allah.<ref>Anthony, ''The Satanic Verses in Early Shiʿite Literature'' pp. 241–245</ref><ref>Rubin, Uri (1995), [https://www.urirubin.com/assets/docs/THE_EYE_OF_THE_BEHOLDER_-_SEARCHABLE.32644548.pdf The eye of the beholder: the life of Muḥammad as viewed by the early Muslims: a textual analysis] Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, p. 157-61</ref> The observations of Nicolai Sinai, Patricia Crone, and (writing in 2021, a couple of years after Anthony's assessment) Tommaso Tesei all make arguments based on a literary analysis of the text, which either undermine or (Tesei) implicitly support the likelihood of a historical kernal to the story and are discussed below.

On the other hand, Tommaso Tesei builds on the common observation (also agreed by Crone as the general scholarly view) that verses 23 and 26-32 appear to be an interpolation of long verses into a surah of otherwise short verses. Tesei argues that those verses display stylistic incoherence as well as a theological tension with the rest of Q. 53, a surah which is otherwise consistent with evidence external to the Islamic tradition regarding pre-Islamic deities and star worship. It could be noted that these long verses with all their difficulties commence after verses 20-21, so Sinai's argument is not entirely eliminated.