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[[File:Al-Uzza with Zodiac.jpg|right|170px|thumb|The goddess al-Uzza at the Temple of Winged Lions in Petra.]]
[[File:Al-Uzza with Zodiac.jpg|right|170px|thumb|The goddess al-Uzza at the Temple of Winged Lions in Petra.]]
The''' Satanic Verses''' (also the ''Gharaniq incident'') was an incident where Prophet [[Muhammad]] acknowledged Allat, Manat, and al-Uzza, the goddesses of the [[Pagan Origins of Islam|Pagan]] Meccans in a [[Qur'an|Qur'anic]] [[revelation]], only to later recant and claim they were the words of the Devil.  
The''' Satanic Verses''' (also the ''Gharaniq incident'') was an incident where Prophet [[Muhammad]] acknowledged Allat, Manat, and al-Uzza, the goddesses of the [[Pagan Origins of Islam|Pagan]] Meccans in a [[Qur'an|Qur'anic]] [[revelation]], only to later recant and claim they were the words of the Devil.  
== Theological status in Islam ==
=== Shahab Ahmed (d. 2015) ===
Shahab Ahmed was an Islamic studies scholar at Harvard University until he passed away, aged 48, in 2015.
{{Quote|{{citation|url=https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674047426|author=Shahab Ahmed|year=2017|pages=2-3|title=Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam|publisher=Harvard University Press|ISBN=9780674047426}}|The facticity and historicity of the Satanic verses incident are today (with a few maverick exceptions) '''universally rejected by Muslims of all sects and interpretative movements'''—Sunnī, Twelver Shī‘ī, Ismā‘īlī Shī‘ī, Aḥmadī, Ibāḍī, Ḥanafī, Shāfi‘ī, Mālikī, Ḥanbalī, Wahhābī, Salafī, Deobandī, Barelvī, and so forth—routinely '''on pain of heresy (kufr)—that is, on pain of being deemed not a Muslim.''' The Satanic verses incident is understood as calling into question the integrity of the process of Divine Communication to Muḥammad—and thus the integrity of the Text of the Qur’ān. The universal rejection of the Satanic verses incident constitutes an instance of contemporary Islamic orthodoxy—that is to say, it is the only truth that a Muslim qua Muslim may legitimately hold on the matter. For the last two hundred years, to be a Muslim, one should believe that the Satanic verses incident did not take place—that is, the contemporary Muslim should not believe that the Prophet Muḥammad recited verses of Satanic suggestion as Divine inspiration. In other words, for modern Muslims, the Satanic verses incident is something entirely unthinkable.<br>The reason for my writing this book is that, '''as a straightforward matter of historical fact''', this Islamic orthodoxy of the rejection of the facticity of the Satanic verses incident has not always obtained. The fundamental finding of the present volume is that '''in the first two centuries of Islam, Muslim attitudes to the Satanic verses incident were effectively the direct opposite of what they are today.''' This volume studies no less than fifty historical reports that narrate the Satanic verses incident and that were transmitted by the first generations of Muslims. This study of the Satanic verses incident in the historical memory of the early Muslim community will demonstrate in detail that the incident constituted an absolutely standard element in the memory of early Muslims of the life of their Prophet. In other words, the early Muslim community believed almost universally that the Satanic verses incident was a true historical fact. As far as the overwhelming majority of the Muslim community in the first two hundred years was concerned, the Messenger of God did indeed, on at least one occasion, mistake words of Satanic suggestion as being of Divine inspiration. For the early Muslims, the Satanic verses incident was something entirely thinkable.}}
==Historicity==
The Satanic Verses incident is reported in the [[tafsir]] 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.<ref>Ahmed, Shahab (2008), "[http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=q3_SIM-00372 Satanic Verses]", in Dammen McAuliffe, Jane, ''Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān'', Georgetown University, Washington DC: Brill (published 14 August 2008)</ref>
It has also been recorded in 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> and is indirectly and in part referred to in al-Tirmidhi and [[Sahih]] Bukhari, where it is recorded that Muhammad performed a prostration when he finished reciting Surat-an-Najm, and all the Muslims and pagans prostrated along with him.<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> Since in today's Qur'an, the pagan goddesses are attacked in that particular [[Surah]], pagans and Muslims prostrating represents a remarkable memory of Muhammad holding a totally heterodox view to contemporary and historical Islam.


==Account==
==Account==
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Pious Mussulmans of after days, scandalised at the lapse of their Prophet into so flagrant a concession, would reject the whole story.  But the authorities are too strong to be impugned.  It is hardly possible to conceive how the tale, if not in some shape or other founded in truth, could ever have been invented.  The stubborn fact remains, and is by all admitted, that the first refugees did return about this time from Abyssinia; and that they returned in consequence of a rumour that Mecca was converted.  To this fact the narratives of Wackidi and Tabari afford the only intelligible clue.  At the same time it is by no means necessary that we should literally adopt the exculpatory version of Mahometan tradition; or seek, in a supernatural interposition, the explanation of actions to be equally accounted for by the natural workings of the Prophet's mind.<ref>Muir, Sir William. (1878). [http://books.google.com/books?id=-jxbAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false ''The Life of Mahomet'']. (pp. 86-88). London: Smith, Elder & Co</ref>}}
Pious Mussulmans of after days, scandalised at the lapse of their Prophet into so flagrant a concession, would reject the whole story.  But the authorities are too strong to be impugned.  It is hardly possible to conceive how the tale, if not in some shape or other founded in truth, could ever have been invented.  The stubborn fact remains, and is by all admitted, that the first refugees did return about this time from Abyssinia; and that they returned in consequence of a rumour that Mecca was converted.  To this fact the narratives of Wackidi and Tabari afford the only intelligible clue.  At the same time it is by no means necessary that we should literally adopt the exculpatory version of Mahometan tradition; or seek, in a supernatural interposition, the explanation of actions to be equally accounted for by the natural workings of the Prophet's mind.<ref>Muir, Sir William. (1878). [http://books.google.com/books?id=-jxbAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false ''The Life of Mahomet'']. (pp. 86-88). London: Smith, Elder & Co</ref>}}


==Historicity==
==See also==
 
The Satanic Verses incident is reported in the [[tafsir]] 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.<ref>Ahmed, Shahab (2008), "[http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=q3_SIM-00372 Satanic Verses]", in Dammen McAuliffe, Jane, ''Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān'', Georgetown University, Washington DC: Brill (published 14 August 2008)</ref>
 
It has also been recorded in 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> and is indirectly and in part referred to in al-Tirmidhi and [[Sahih]] Bukhari, where it is recorded that Muhammad performed a prostration when he finished reciting Surat-an-Najm, and all the Muslims and pagans prostrated along with him.<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> Since in today's Qur'an, the pagan goddesses are attacked in that particular [[Surah]], pagans and Muslims prostrating represents a remarkable memory of Muhammad holding a totally heterodox view to contemporary and historical Islam.
 
==Implications for the "Surah Like It" Challenge==
 
If, like the early Muslims, the historicity of the Satanic Verses incident is accepted, this raises another troubling implication for a document of Islamic faith. Verse 2:23 of the Qur'an contains what is now popularly referred to as the "surah like it" challenge, where [[Allah]] challenges doubters to create a single surah like those contained in the Qur'an.<ref>"''And if you are in doubt as to that which We have revealed to Our servant, then produce a chapter like it and call on your witnesses besides Allah if you are truthful. ''" - {{Quran|2|23}}</ref>
 
According to the historical memory of the Satanic Verses incident found in the sira and tafsir traditions, Satan created a fabricated surah. It was apparently so convincing that Muhammad himself believed it and publicly recited it as the words of Allah. Not one amongst the Muslims, the pagans and even the [[jinn]] doubted its source. Therefore, according to Islamic sources, the "surah like it" challenge has already been met already during Muhammad's lifetime, by Satan no less, and thus the Qur'an's challenge is met and bested.
 
==See Also==


* [[The Rushdie Affair]]
*[[The Rushdie Affair]]


==External Links==
==External links==


*[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Saifullah/sverses.htm|2=2011-11-04}} Muhammad and the Satanic Verses] ''- Responses to Islamic Awareness by Answering Islam''
*[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Saifullah/sverses.htm|2=2011-11-04}} Muhammad and the Satanic Verses] ''- Responses to Islamic Awareness by Answering Islam''
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