Satanic verses

Satanic Verses

Few, if any, religious texts have caused as much turmoil in human history as did the Qur’an. In fact, a trail of blood follows the Qur’an to as early as the seventh century, following the Prophet’s death in 632 AD, when the very prophethood of Muhammad was put in question.

The uproar and violence that followed the publication of Salman’s Rushdie’s novel “Satanic Verses” in 1988 is but a case in point. Rushdie famously invoked the so-called “ Satanic ” verses that Muhammad incorporated into the Qur’an and then later repudiated as verses revealed by Satan.

The verses allowed for a reconcilaition with the pagan Meccans by recognising three of their goddesses: Allat, Al-Uzza and Manat. Muhammad was scolded by Gabriel for the insertion, according to early Muslim traditions.

The verses were then expunged from the text of the Qur’an and Muhammad excused his own conduct by claiming that Satan casts words into the mouths of all the prophets. God then abrogated what Satan whispered to Muhammad and rebuked him especially for degrading divinity by associating it with female deities. (Sura Al-Najm 53:19-22)

It is at this juncture that one can discern disturbances in the revelations and, subsequently, the text of the Qur’an. Scholarly work by Richard Bell reveals major revisions in the formulation of Sura Al-Najm, for instance.

Verses 1-18 describe two visions of Allah by Muhammad which were met by fierce objections. Verses were then introduced into Al-Najm to modify the impression of visual manifestations of God. Muhammad also famously inserted the utterance of his secretary Abdullah Ibn Sa’ad into the Qur’an, which casts serious doubts on his inspirations.

Studies of the Qur’an found it cluttered with repetitions and stylistic errors. Montgomery Watt ‘s textual analysis of the Qur’an, for instance, found evidence of rhyming phrases that do not fit into the passage, abrupt changes of rhyme and a juxtaposition of apparently contradictory assertions.

It is, thus, no wonder that Muhammad’s attempt to dominate by virtue of the doctrine he put forward was met with fierce opposition by key members of his community. In fact, the persecution of the members of Muhammad’s sect only started following the revelation, and the retraction, of the “satanic verses.”

From that time onward, Muhammad’s only option in the highly literary Arab community was to dominate by the power of the sword.