Satanic Verses

Satanic Verses refers to words of 'satanic suggestion' which the Islamic Prophet Muhammad is said to have mistaken for divine revelation. The alleged verses can be read in biographies of Muhammad by al-Wāqidī, Ibn Sa'd and Ibn Ishaq, and the tafsir of al-Tabarī. Most Muslim scholars reject the historicity of the incident on the basis of the theological doctrine of 'isma (prophetic infallibility i.e., divine protection of Muhammad from mistakes) and their weak isnads (chains of transmission). Orientalist scholars on the other hand have largely accepted the historicity, citing the implausibility of early Muslim biographers fabricating a story so unflattering about their prophet. The first use of the expression is attributed to Sir William Muir in 1858. There are numerous accounts reporting the alleged 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 traceable to one single narrator Muhammad ibn 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 Mecca to Islam. As he was reciting these verses of Sūrat an-Najm, considered a revelation from the angel Gabriel, Satan tempted him to utter the following line: Allāt, al-'Uzzā and Manāt were three goddesses worshipped by the Meccans. Discerning the meaning of 'gharāniq' is difficult, as it is a hapax legomenon (i.e. only used once in the text). 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'.