“God is the
Greatest/I acknowledge that there is no God but Allah.” So says the
first two lines of the adhat, the
Muslim call to prayer when
translated into English. In
some Islamic traditions, however, Mohammad once offered a prayer to
three Pagan
deities in what has come to be called “Qissat al-Gharaniq”, “The
Story Of the Cranes”, or most often, “The Satanic Verses.” What
these three lines, as recited by the Islamic prophet, mean is obscure
and has been a matter of debate for centuries.
Not
only the meaning of “The Satanic Verses” is elusive; their roots
remain a matter of unknown origin as well. The
earliest know reference to the words in question are attributed to
the oral historian Mohammad Ibn Ka’b who transmitted the story to
Ibn Ishaq a full two generations after the prophet Mohammad’s
death. It is likely that the story was circulating socially before
Ibn
Ka’b incorporated it into his biographical account which was later
recited to Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Jarir ibn al-Tabari who wrote
an early biographical book
about the prophet’s life.
According
to al-Tabari’s narrative, Mohammad was overcome by a strong desire
to convert the Qurayshi tribes-people of Mecca to his newly founded
religion. When he initiated the adhat with the intention of reciting
the “Surat an-Najm”, a
voice whispered in his ear “Have you thought of al-Lat and
al-Uzza/and Manat, the third, the other?” Believing the voice to
have come from the archangel Jibreel, the messenger from Allah that
communicated with Mohammad on that god’s behalf, the prophet then
announced to the people, “These are the exalted cranes whose
intercession is hoped for.” Al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat were three
Pagan goddesses that were worshiped by the Qurayshi people in the
ancient city of Mecca and Mohammad appeared to be giving them his
honors.
As
the story goes, the archangel Jibreel later approached Mohammad and
informed him that the voice he had heard at that time did not come
from him; it had, in actuality, been the voice of the
Shaytan, the Islamic
equivakent of Satan. Feeling deceived and dejected, Mohammad went
into a state of despair and was later forgiven by Allah for having
made a mistake.
“The
Story Of the Cranes” circulated widely throughout the Islamic
community for many years. Muslim scholars commented extensively on
its significance in the tafsirs, a
collection of explanations on Islamic doctrine written by the
earliest authorities of the religious movement. The
story was, however, never officially accepted as one of the hadiths.
Then, after being passed down
from generation to generation for so many years, experts on Islam
began to question the veracity of “The Satanic Verses” during the
medieval era. Some simply dismissed the story as nonsense and slander
that originated with enemies of the Muslim community in an attempt to
sow doubt in the minds
of the pious. Others claimed that some Qurayshis, in league with the
Shaytan, had infiltrated the crowd of Muslims who had gathered to
pray and, disguising their voices to mimic Mohammad, praised the
Pagan deities in an effort to humiliate the early Muslims by making
them look hypocritical. Still
others dismissed it as misinformation since it contradicted the
ideas written in the Qur’an, and
since the Qur’an is,
according to dogma, the perfect word of Allah, anything that
contradicted it must be inherently false and heretical. And so “The
Story Of the Cranes” faded from the minds of the Islamic community,
rarely ever mentioned, and if remembered at all, thought of as little
more than a footnote for lovers of obscure and trivial information.
But
then, repressed ideas of evil have a way of resurfacing once they
have been dismissed as irrelevant. In
the modern world, particularly as a result of colonialism, a handful
of researchers, now derisively labeled “Orientalists”, started
taking a stab at explaining the authenticity, origins, and meaning of
“The Satanic Verses”. The revival of interest in this subject
enraged the wrath of modern Islamic intellectuals, most of which
invoked the concept of Allah’s
power to discount the legend as heresy; their claim was that Allah
chose Mohammad as his prophet so Allah would have protected him from
being influenced by the Shaytan and therefore it would have been
impossible for Mohammad to take instructions from the god’s biggest
existential adversary. Another Islamist objection was that the story
was an adaptation of Christ being tempted by Satan; a story that
proved the necessity of keeping Muslims and Christians separate since
the mingling of the two faiths would cause the theological pollution
and degeneration of pure Islamic thought. Even so, the matter
remained little more than an item of curiosity. That is, an item of
curiosity until the publication of Salman Rushdie’s notorious
novel The Satanic Verses in
the mid-1980s, an event that caused a massive outcry around the world
because of its unflattering
depiction of Mohammad and his wives. The outcry led to the Iranian
dictator Ayatollah Khomeini
issuing a death threat against Rushdie due to his blasphemous
satirical book.
So
what does it all mean? From
the context of Ibn Tabari’s original biographical writing, it
appears to be a parable teaching the lesson that Mohammad was a man,
not a god, who was prone to making mistakes like all people and
because of his devotion to Allah his mistakes would be forgiven.
While this interpretation sound heretical to modern fundamentalists,
an anthropologist would be quick to point out that concepts of heresy
are products of the times that produce them; what is considered
blasphemy to one generation may not be blasphemy to another
generation. Actually it is traditional for Muslims to believe
Mohammad was a man and not a divine incarnation, hence the reason
that Muslims are forbidden from worshiping Mohammad in his tomb in
Mecca. The idea that their prophet was perfect is a relatively modern
and fundamentalist theological dogma.
Of
course, there is still one big question that needs to be asked. What
if Mohammad was not the prophet of Allah at all? What then? Is this a
question that only the Shaytan would encourage one to ask?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_Verses
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