Answering Objections to Islam · Prophetic Biography
The "Satanic Verses" Reports
Handle with care. Do not say the story was "invented by orientalists" — it appears in early Muslim historical works. The argument is about grading, not provenance.
In short
- 1.Not in Bukhari or Muslim; the chains are mursal or weak.
- 2.Al-Razi and the majority of exegetes reject the narrative outright.
- 3.Q 22:52 addresses satanic interference generally and is not a confession of this event.
The claim being examined
Al-Tabari's Tarikh and Ibn Sa'd's Tabaqat preserve reports that the Prophet (SAW) briefly recited lines praising al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat during Surah 53 before being corrected. Critics treat this as either satanic influence or self-authorship.
The Islamic position
The reports fail the standard of authenticity applied to prophetic narration. They appear in historical literature, not in Bukhari or Muslim, and their chains are broken (mursal) or graded weak.
Analysis
Some Western historians (Watt, Guillaume) argue there must be something behind this story, because no community would invent something so embarrassing about itself. That's a fair point and you should say so rather than brush it aside. The Muslim answer is about evidence: "nobody would make this up" is a guess about likelihood, whereas checking the chain of narrators is checking an actual record — and here the chains are weak. A report that weak cannot be used to establish anything about how the Prophet (SAW) behaved. Worth adding: Q 22:52 itself says such interference happens and God corrects it, so even the strongest version of the story does not damage Islamic belief.
From the Qur'an
إِلَّآ إِذَا تَمَنَّىٰٓ أَلْقَى ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ فِىٓ أُمْنِيَّتِهِۦ
illā idhā tamannā alqā l-shayṭānu fī um'niyyatihi
Whenever a messenger recited, Satan cast something into his recitation — then Allah abolishes what Satan casts.
إِنْ هِىَ إِلَّآ أَسْمَآءٌۭ سَمَّيْتُمُوهَآ
in hiya illā asmāon sammaytumūhā
They are but names you have named, you and your forefathers.
Sources
The spoken script for this entry is inside the app.
Members get the word-for-word delivery guide — how to open, what to say, the likely replies and how to close warmly — plus notes, a dawah journal and the study assistant.
Open the app