The Satanic Verses are a small number of apparently pagan verses that were alleged to have been temporarily included in the Qur'an by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, only to be later removed. Narratives derived from hadith involving these verses can be read in, among other places, the biographies of Muhammad by al-Wāqidī, Ibn Sa'd (who was a scribe of Waqidi), al-Tabarī, and Ibn Ishaq (the last as reconstructed by Alfred Guillaume).
The first use of the expression 'Satanic Verses' is attributed to Sir William Muir (1858).
Read more about Satanic Verses: Basic Narrative, In Early Islam, Views, Related Traditions, Tabarī's Account, Authenticity of The Event
Famous quotes containing the words satanic and/or verses:
“of the satanic thistle that raises its horned symmetry
flowering above sister grass-daisies’ pink tiny
bloomlets angelic as lightbulbs—”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“The night in prison was novel and interesting enough.... I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)