Qissat al-Gharaniq: The 'Satanic Verses', Three Versions and the Scholarly Debate

Among the most academically significant episodes in the Seerah scholarship is the story Western Orientalists named "the Satanic Verses", a name that does not appear anywhere in Islamic sources and was coined by a 19th-century Presbyterian minister named Sir William Muir (died 1905), one of the early Western scholars of Islām and author of one of the first English-language modern biographies of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. What Islamic sources do call it, where they mention it at all, is Qiṣṣat al-Gharānīq (قِصَّةُ الْغَرَانِيق): the Story of the Gharānīq Birds. The Gharānīq is a long-necked bird, crane, heron, or pelican in modern Arabic; scholars have differed on the exact English equivalent, and the image is of beautiful birds soaring upward toward Allah.

❧The context

The incident is set in the context of the first Hijra to Abyssinia (Rajab, year 5 of the Dawah). The fifteen emigrants returned within three months, Shawwal of the same year, because a rumor had reached them that Quraysh had accepted Islām. When they discovered the rumor was false, a question arose: what had actually happened to generate such a rumor? The answer, in its simplest, most authenticated form, is that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم recited Sūrat an-Najm publicly, and even the Quraysh fell into Sajdah under the power of its verses. That event, distorted by the distance of retelling, became "Quraysh have accepted Islām."

But certain sources added details. And those additional details constitute the controversy.

❧Three versions, with three very different implications

Version 1 (Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī, the only authenticated version):

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم recited Sūrat an-Najm from beginning to end. Its final verses built to a pitch, naming the destroyed peoples of ʿĀd, Thamūd, Nūḥ, Sodom, asking: "Which of the signs of your Lord will you still argue about?" And culminating in: فَاسْجُدُوا لِلَّهِ وَاعْبُدُوا ("Prostrate to Allah and worship Him"). The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم fell into Sajdah; the Muslims fell into Sajdah; and even the Quraysh, overwhelmed by the emotional and rhetorical force of the Sūrah, prostrated together with them. The sole exception was al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah, who was too proud to prostrate and instead pressed sand to his forehead. The Quraysh's Sajdah, traveling by rumor to Abyssinia, became "they've accepted Islām."

This version requires no additional explanation. The Quran's power caused an involuntary response. End of story.

Version 2 (reported in al-Ṭabarī's Tafsīr, traced to ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, a mursal narration with a broken chain):

When the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم recited verses 19–20 of Sūrat an-Najm, Afaraʾaytum al-Lāta wal-ʿUzzā, wa Manāta ath-thālithata al-ukhrā ("Have you seen al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā, and Manāt the third?"), Shayṭān cried out in his own voice and added two verses that were audible to the Mushrikūn but not to the Muslims:

تِلْكَ الْغَرَانِيقُ الْعُلَى، وَإِنَّ شَفَاعَتَهُنَّ لَتُرْتَجَى

"These are the exalted Gharānīq, and their intercession is hoped for."

The Quraysh heard it. They thought the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم had finally compromised, acknowledging their gods as worthy intermediaries. When he finished the Sūrah and prostrated, they prostrated with him in relief: "He has accepted our gods." The Muslims, who had not heard the two Shayṭānic verses, prostrated simply because he did.

In this version, the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم ʿiṣmah (protected status) is not technically violated, he did not say or hear the false verses. Shayṭān projected them independently. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī analyzed this version along these lines.

Version 3 (found in even more obscure sources, al-Wāḥidī's Asbāb al-Nuzūl and others):

Shayṭān impersonated Jibreel عليه السلام. When Jibreel was reciting the revelation to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, Shayṭān inserted the two Gharānīq verses. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, unable to distinguish between Jibreel and Shayṭān, recited those two verses himself in the public recitation. Jibreel later returned and asked him what he had recited. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم recited with the two false verses. Jibreel said: "I never gave you those." The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was devastated. Allah then revealed Sūrat al-Ḥajj verse 52 as consolation, and the two verses were abrogated.

This is the version that forms the premise of Salman Rushdie's fiction (named after this incident). It is also the version non-Muslim critics use to argue that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم could not distinguish genuine Waḥy from Shayṭānic suggestion, implying either delusion or fabrication. It is important to state clearly: this version exists in some early Islamic sources. It was not invented by Orientalists, though they heavily exploit it. Academic honesty requires acknowledging this.

❧Sūrat al-Ḥajj 22:52 and its two readings

وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِنْ قَبْلِكَ مِنْ رَسُولٍ وَلَا نَبِيٍّ إِلَّا إِذَا تَمَنَّى أَلْقَى الشَّيْطَانُ فِي أُمْنِيَّتِهِ فَيَنسَخُ اللَّهُ مَا يُلْقِي الشَّيْطَانُ ثُمَّ يُحْكِمُ اللَّهُ آيَاتِهِ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ

"Never did We send before you a messenger or a prophet except that when he tamanna, Shayṭān cast into his umniyyah. But Allah abrogates what Shayṭān casts, then Allah affirms His verses. And Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise."

The word tamanna is the hinge. It carries two meanings:

(a) To recite, an older Arabic meaning, well-attested in pre-Islamic poetry including the Muʿallaqāt. Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما read it this way. Under this reading: "...except that when he recites, Shayṭān casts something into his recitation, and Allah abrogates it." This reading links the verse to the Gharānīq incident and is the foundation of Ibn Taymiyyah's acceptance of some form of Versions 2–3.

(b) To wish/desire, the more common modern Arabic meaning. Under this reading, the verse is a general statement: every prophet's intentions are subject to Shayṭānic interference in the internal sense, and Allah protects them from it. Nothing external to the prophet's own recitation is implied.

Ibn Taymiyyah used reading (a) and argued that the verse explicitly references the Gharānīq type of incident, and further that the verse following (22:53, liyajʿala mā yulqī ash-shayṭānu fitnatan lilladhīna fī qulūbihim maraḍ) implies the people heard something, which would require an external event, not merely an internal temptation.

❧The theological debate: *ʿIṣmah* (prophetic protection from error)

The majority of Sunni scholars rejected Versions 2 and 3 on theological grounds. Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, author of Al-Shifāʾ bi-Taʿrīf Ḥuqūq al-Muṣṭafā, one of the most celebrated works on the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم rights and status, said: "How can any Muslim who loves the Messenger believe this story?" They argued that the ʿiṣmah (infallibility/protection) of the prophets guarantees the integrity of revelation absolutely.

Ibn Taymiyyah took a more nuanced position on ʿiṣmah itself:

1. Prophets cannot commit major sins (kabāʾir)

2. Prophets cannot commit lewd or immoral acts (fawāḥish)

3. Prophets cannot lie, ever

4. But: prophets can commit judgmental errors and minor sins, they simply do not persist in them and repent immediately

Evidence he cited: the prisoners of Badr (the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم chose to ransom them, Allah said this was not the best decision, Sūrat al-Anfāl); Adam عليه السلام eating the forbidden fruit (the Quran says wa ʿaṣā Ādamu rabbahu); Sūrat al-Fatḥ 48:2 (li-yaghfira laka Allāhu mā taqaddama min dhanbika wa mā taʾakhkhar, "so that Allah may forgive you what came before and what is to come of your dhunūb").

His underlying theological point: the prophets are the best of humans, not angels. A perfect human role model must be human, otherwise, who could emulate them? The prophets' humanity, bounded by inability to persist in error and guarantee of repentance, is their completeness, not their deficiency.

❧Seven reasons the speaker prefers Version 1

Yasir Qadhi expressed his personal conclusion that Versions 2 and 3 should be set aside:

1. Multiple Quranic guarantees protect the integrity of the Waḥy from corruption: Lā yaʾtīhi al-bāṭilu min bayni yadayhi wa lā min khalfih (Fuṣṣilat 41:42); Innā naḥnu nazzalnā adh-dhikra wa innā lahu laḥāfiẓūn (al-Ḥijr 15:9); Nazala bihi ar-Rūḥ al-Amīn ʿalā qalbik (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:193–194). Even if Ibn Taymiyyah has a theological answer, the heart inclines toward not compromising revelation's purity.

2. There is no authentic isnād for Versions 2 or 3, not one. Every chain traced through al-Ṭabarī and others is either mursal (missing a link back to the Prophet), weak, or traced only to Tābiʿīn like ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr who did not witness the event. None appear in the six canonical books (Kutub al-Sittah) or the Musnad of Imam Aḥmad.

3–7: The speaker indicated he had seven total reasons but did not enumerate all of them fully in this session.

❧The Quran as its own defense

The strongest argument is the simplest: the Quran we hold in our hands has never been disputed within the Muslim community. The two Gharānīq verses, even among scholars who discuss Versions 2 and 3, have never been included as Quranic. No recension, no ʿUthmānic muṣḥaf, no companion's personal copy, no Quranic manuscript in existence includes them. Their language does not match the Quran's style. They were recognized as false from the moment the incident occurred.

And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, Aisha's famous hadith in Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī applies here by analogy: "If he had wanted to hide anything from the Quran, he would have hidden [the verses most embarrassing to himself]." But he didn't. The same radical honesty that ensured Sūrat al-Aḥzāb's difficult verses were recited publicly ensures that nothing was added either.

Thumma yuḥkimullahu āyātih, "Then Allah affirms His verses." Whatever the precise mechanism, the outcome is undisturbed: the Quran in our hands is what Jibreel brought and what the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم recited. No Shayṭānic verse is in it. The Waḥy was protected.