Editing Satanic Verses (section)

==Historicity debate==
Since [[William Muir]], the historicity of this episode had been accepted by secular academics.<ref name=EnQ>EoQ, ''Satanic Verses.'' For scholars that accept the historicity, see
*Michael Cook, ''Muhammad.'' In ''Founders of Faith,'' Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 309.
*Etan Kohlberg, ''A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn Tawus and His Library.'' Brill, 1992, p. 20.
*F.E. Peters, ''The Hajj,'' Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 37. See also ''The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition,'' Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 94.
*William Muir, ''The Life of Mahomet,'' Smith, Elder 1878, p. 88.
*John D. Erickson, ''Islam and Postcolonial Narrative.'' Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 140.
*[[Thomas Patrick Hughes]], ''A Dictionary of Islam,'' Asian Educational Services, p.  191.
*Maxime Rodinson, ''Prophet of Islam,'' Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2002, p. 113.
*Montgomery Watt, ''Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman.'' Oxford University Press 1961, p. 60.
*Daniel J. Sahas, ''Iconoclasm.'' Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, Brill Online.</ref> Some orientalists, however, argued against the historic authenticity of these verses on various grounds.<ref>EoQ, ''Satanic Verses.'' For scholars that do not accept the historicity, see

* "Kuran", ''[[Encyclopaedia of Islam]]'', 2nd Edition, Vol. 5 (1986), p. 404
* "Muḥammad," [[Encyclopaedia of Islam]], Second Edition. Edited by [[P. J. Bearman]], [[Th. Bianquis]], [[C. E. Bosworth]], [[E. van Donzel]], [[W. P. Heinrichs]] et al. Brill Online, 2014</ref> Sean Anthony observes a trend of more recent scholarship towards rejecting the historicity of the story after a period in which scholars were more divided.<ref name="Anthony2019">{{cite journal |last1=Anthony |first1=Sean |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 |journal=Shii Studies Review |volume=3 |issue=1–2 |pages=215–252 |doi=10.1163/24682470-12340043 |s2cid=181905314 |access-date=16 August 2022}}</ref>{{rp|220}}

[[William Montgomery Watt]] and [[Alfred Guillaume]] claim 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."<ref name="Watt, Muhammad at Mecca"/>

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.<ref name="EoB">{{Citation
 | last =Rubin
 | first =Uri
 | publication-date =1995
 | year =1997
 | title =The eye of the beholder: the life of Muḥammad as viewed by the early Muslims: a textual analysis
 | location =Princeton, NJ
 | publisher =Darwin Press
 | page =161
 | isbn =0-87850-110-X
 }}</ref>
Shahab Ahmed states that "Reports of the Satanic verses incident were recorded by virtually every compiler of a major biography of Muhammad in the first two centuries of Islam: 'Urwah b. al-Zubayr (23–94), Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (51–124), Musa b. 'Uqbah (85–141), Ibn Ishaq (85–151), Abu Ma'shar (d. 170), Yunus b. Bukayr (d. 199), and al-Waqidi (130–207)."<ref name="AhmedBeforeOrthodoxy" />{{rp|257}} Alford T. Welch, however, argues that this rationale alone is insufficient but does not rule out the possibility of some historical foundation to the story. He proposes that the story may be yet another instance of historical telescoping, i.e., a circumstance that Muhammad's contemporaries knew to have lasted for a long period of time later became condensed into a story that limits his acceptance of the Meccan goddesses’ intercession to a brief period of time and assigns blame for this departure from strict [[monotheism]] to [[Satan]].{{sfn|Buhl|Welch|1993}}

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.{{explain|date=May 2018}} 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.<ref>Burton, "Those are the high-flying cranes", ''Journal of Semitic Studies (JSS)'' 15</ref> Disagreeing with Burton, 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.<ref>G.R. Hawting, ''The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam.'' Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 135.</ref> Burton, in his rejection of the authenticity of the story, sided with [[Leone Caetani]], who wrote that the story was to be rejected not only on the basis of {{transliteration|ar|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."<ref>Quoted by I.R Netton in "Text and Trauma: An East-West Primer" (1996) p. 86, Routledge</ref>

[[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."<ref>Maxime Rodinson, ''Mohammed.'' Allen Lane the Penguin Press, 1961, p. 106.</ref> 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 [[Qiyamah|Last Judgment]] by enabling the three goddesses 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{{where|date=May 2018}} that he was reverting to his pagan beginnings, combined with opposition and indignation from his own followers influenced him to recant 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]].<ref>Maxime Rodinson, ''Mohammed.'' Allen Lane the Penguin Press, 1961, pp. 107–108.</ref>

[[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.<ref>Halliday, Fred, ''100 Myths about the Middle East'',</ref>

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:

{{blockquote|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 {{transliteration|ar|[[ismah|'isma]]}}) 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...
<ref>G. R. Hawting, ''The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History'', pp. 134–135</ref>}}

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 [[Jew]]s and the [[Christians]] 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".<ref>''Eye of the Beholder'', p. 21</ref> 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.22:52, Q.53, Q.17:73–74), the idea of satanic temptation was claimed{{by whom|date=May 2018}} 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 [[narratology|narratological]] exigencies which may have shaped early {{transliteration|ar|sīra}} material, as opposed to the more commonly considered ones of dogma, sect, and political/[[List of Muslim Dynasties|dynastic]] faction. Given the consensus that "the most archaic layer of the biography, [is] that of the stories of the {{transliteration|ar|[[Qāṣṣ|kussās]]}} [i.e. popular story-tellers]" ({{transliteration|ar|Sīra}}, ''[[Encyclopaedia of Islam|EI]]²''), this may prove a fruitful line of inquiry.

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.<ref name="EoB"/>

Building on Rubin's views, Sean Anthony has proposed that an early tradition attributed to ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr about the mass conversion and prostration of the Meccans but which does not mention the satanic verses was at a later stage connected with Q. 53:19-20, Q. 22:52 and Q. 17:73-74.<ref name="Anthony2019" />{{rp|241–245}}

Some scholars believe there is evidence in the Quranic text of surah 53 itself relevant to the question of historicity. Nicolai Sinai argues that the conciliatory satanic verses would make no sense in the context of the scathing criticism in the subsequent verses, whether they were uttered before Q.53:21-22 or (if those replaced the satanic verses) Q. 53:24-25.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sinai |first1=Nicolai |date=2011 |title=An Interpretation of Sūrat al-Najm (Q. 53) |journal=Journal of Qurʾanic Studies |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=1–28 |doi=10.3366/jqs.2011.0018}}</ref>{{rp|10–11}} Patricia Crone makes a similar point but regarding the preceding verses, Q. 53:19-20. She argues that "Have you seen al-Lat...?" should be taken as a hostile question about literally seeing the three deities, particularly since the preceding half of the surah repeatedly claims that Allah's servant saw the heavenly being, and noting also other verses where a similar question is asked (Q. 35:40 and Q. 46:4).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Crone |first1=Patricia |date=2015 |title=Problems in sura 53 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24692173 |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |volume=78 |issue=1 |pages=15–23|doi=10.1017/S0041977X15000014 |jstor=24692173 |s2cid=161476552 }}</ref>{{rp|18–22}}

On the other hand, Tommaso Tesei builds on the common observation (also mentioned by Crone) that verses 23 and 26-32 of Q. 53 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 consistent with evidence external to the Islamic tradition regarding pre-Islamic deities and star worship. Of relevance to the possibility of historical elements in the satanic verses story, Tesei notes that the interpolation (as he sees it) coincides exactly with the traditional account that an explanatory comment was inserted to rectify the identification of the pagan deities as divine intercessors.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tesei |first1=Tommaso |date=2021 |title=The Qurʾān(s) in Context(s) |url=https://www.academia.edu/75302962 |journal=Journal Asiatique |volume=309 |issue=2|pages=185–202}}</ref>{{rp|192–196}}

Shahab Ahmed noted that the Quran is at pains to deny that the source of Muhammad's inspiration is a shaytan (Q. 81:19–20, 25) because for his immediate audience, the sources for the two categories of inspired individuals in society, poets and soothsayers, were shaytans and jinn, respectively, whereas Muhammad was a prophet.<ref name="AhmedBeforeOrthodoxy" />{{rp|295}}