Ali Ataie – What are the Satanic Verses Dr
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AI: Transcript ©
Now now maybe maybe I'll mention this as
as a as a last point.
There there's there's one popular
Christian contention
that I think I should probably respond to,
because Christians Christian apologists are always bringing this
up.
So so Christian apologists contend
that the prophet like Moses,
okay,
cannot be the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon
him,
because the prophet apparently violates Deuteronomy 18/20.
Okay? So so just as I said that
the Christian Jesus, the Christian Jesus, violates Deuteronomy
18 16, Christian apologists will tell me the
prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, violates Deuteronomy
18 20.
So what does Deuteronomy 18 20 say?
It says,
but the prophet who presumes to speak a
word in my name,
which I have not commanded him,
or who speaks in the name of other
gods, that prophet shall die.
Okay?
So what are they talking about with this
verse? They're talking about the story of the
satanic verses.
Right?
Of course, this was a phrase that was
coined by, you know, Scottish orientalist William Muir.
Muslim scholars refer to it as
or something like that.
But but as you know,
Christian Christian apologist, they love this story. Right?
They they think it's the greatest thing
since the provocations.
Right?
They think they think it's the greatest thing
since sliced sliced bread at holy communion. That's
right. So so as the as the story
goes, and there and there are multiple contradictory
versions of this story.
Yeah. You know, when when the prophet was
in Neccah, he was reciting Surah Al Najim,
and he recited
Have you not seen these 3, Allat and
and Manat?
These were considered to be goddesses among the
the the pagans. And then
Satan apparently whispered
2 false verses to the prophet,
which he thought were divine revelation.
Eventually, the prophet, the Muslims,
and all of the idolaters
prostrated.
Word then spread that the prophet had compromised
with the idolaters and everything just sort of
got along, but then Gabriel informed the prophet
of
and those verses were removed from the Quran.
So that's sort of the basic story. Now
Christians,
they point out that this story of the
satanic verses, it must be true because it
fulfills the criterion of embarrassment.
Right? They say, why would a Muslim invent
this story? Why would a Muslim invent a
story that embarrasses the prophet? It must be
true.
So I personally agree with Imam Al Razi
about this story. Okay? So, Imam Al Razi,
he said that this story
not only clashes with the Quran
and the sunnah, but also clashes with reason.
Carl Ernst, who wrote a book called How
to Read the Quran, he's professor
of Islamic Studies at Chapel Hill. He also
rejects the story on strictly historical and literary
grounds. He's not Muslim. A very flimsy basis
for the history of But
but here's here's here's my, here's my response.
First of all, the the criterion of embarrassment
is the weakest of the criteria of modern
historiography.
So we shouldn't really overemphasize it. And I
know that, Jonathan Brown, as as you pointed
out,
makes that point, in one of your videos.
He makes that point in his in his
introductory book about the prophet, peace be upon
him.
Now now why would a Muslim make the
Muslims fabricated
100 and 100 of hadith.
Okay? Ibnu Josie, he actually collected he has
a book called Kitab al Mu'duat.
Right? The book of fabricated
hadith.
Who fabricated these hadith? Jews?
Christians?
No. Muslims. Muslims in the past foisted lies
upon the prophet. This is a fact. It's
a sad fact, but it's a fact. Why
did they do this? For various reasons. People
wanted to justify their own theological or political
positions. People wanted to justify their immoral behavior
for selfish reasons.
Muslims in positions of power wanted to keep
their power
at all costs.
Power corrupts. You know, people had weak faith
or no faith. There have always been hypocrites.
Muslims fabricated hadith that made the prophet look
bad. They made him look like a racist.
At least they tried to do that. They
did this for their own selfish reasons. They
wanted to justify
their practice of chattel slavery, for instance. I
mean, we can flip the tables on the
Christian here, or ask a Christian, who wrote
the Infancy Gospel of Thomas?
And they'll say, heretics. Well, what was their
religion? They were Christian.
Why did the Christian authors of the Infancy
Gospel of Thomas
write that Jesus as a child
killed another child
and then murdered one of his teachers?
According to the criterion of embarrassment,
this must be true. I mean, why would
a Christian invent the story? Right?
So I think they would get the point.
But but but, secondly, in the eyes of
the people who actually fabricated this particular story,
did it really make the profit look bad?
Was it really embarrassing in their eyes? Exactly.
Maybe not. I I personally don't have a
problem with the one or the other, but
I don't think it's historical because I understand
it's flimsy. But what it shows is that
that God through here through the, angel Gabriel
protected the prophet from Yeah. Satan's satanic attack.
So it actually confirms,
the authenticity of his mission because he was
protected
from Satan. So for me, it's not a
problem either way. The only thing is to
do it in a tendentious way to make
a political point.
Is the problem. But there's another way of
looking at it, and to see it actually
as a confirmation of the prophethood because Gabriel
intervened and and sorted this out. That was
anyway. Yeah. And that's that's Ibn Taymiyyah's position,
and and it's and it's a respectable position.
Right?
So, yeah, on the contrary, maybe for the
people who invented the story,
the story demonstrated that God rescued the prophet
and the believers
from the vial of from the vials of
the devil.
And the story also had an exegetical purpose.
I mean, it it explained chapter 22 verse
52 of the Quran, this idea that, you
know, God cancels out what Satan throws in.
So there were strong theological
motivations for fabricating the story.
It provided a Saba Bu Nuzul for 2,252,
as well as justified this type of intra
Koranic
nazk or abrogation.
So it served a hermeneutical
purpose.
So but one might ask, okay, what does
2252
mean then when it says God cancels out
what Satan throws in? Was it
what is it referring to if not the
satanic versus incident? Well, according to Imam al
Razi,
this just means that the prophets are human
beings. They're not angels. They have emotions, and
that they are not impervious
to temptation,
yet with God's help they are able to
overcome their temptations.
So nash in this verse is used in
the
linguistic sense of removing or wiping something away,
not in the technical sense of a verse
abrogating another verse.
But even with this said, the story doesn't
make historical sense. It clashes with reason and
logic. For one thing, it says that 22/52
abrogated
the so called satanic verses.
This is very strange. Why is it strange?
A bit ridiculous.
Because 22/52
was revealed in Medina
many years later.
So were the Muslims praying to Allat and
Al Uzza in Manat for many years? These
false verses were being recited
by the prophet and the companions for 8
years? Of course not. This is nonsense.
Secondly, and doctor Shabir Abi, as well as
some of
the study Quran commentators point this out, that
if the Prophet said that it that it
was okay
to pray to these goddesses,
then that would have been the end of
his prophetic career. I mean, he would have
lost all credibility
in in the eyes of both his followers
and enemies.
And we can actually, I think, demonstrate,
what the fabricator of this story did. He
took the historical kernel of this story, and
he altered it in order to give the
appearance of truth.
So there is a hadith in Bukhari that
says the prophet recited Suratul Najam, and then
he prostrated,
and the Muslims prostrated, and the idolaters prostrated,
But it says nothing
about Satan or satanic verses or, you know,
these are the high flying cranes
whose intercession is to be sought. It just
says everyone prostrated.
Okay? So the obvious subtext is that the
idolaters were overcome
with awe at the beauty of the prophet's
recitation,
and so they prostrated when the prophet did.
That's it.
But what about what about textual criticism?
Right? So were these verses really part
of the Quran?
So so textual critics look at both external
and internal evidence. And I'll just give you
a quick example from the New Testament.
Luke 22:44.
Okay? It says, and being in agony,
he, meaning Jesus,
prayed more earnestly,
and his sweat was as if great drops
of blood
falling down on the ground. Yep. When we
look at the external evidence that is the
manuscript evidence, the manuscript witnesses
for this verse, we notice that the earliest
manuscripts of Luke do not contain this verse.
P p 69,
p 75, they don't contain this verse. That's
right.
Internal evidence looks at both the Christology of
Luke as well as Luke's
style and choice of words.
Okay? The Luke in Jesus is basically a
stoic philosopher. I mean, he's always
in control of his emotions.
Ehrman calls him imperturbable. Right? He can't be
bothered
by anything. Even on on route to the
crucifixion,
he's having this lucid conversation with with women,
you know, don't weep for me, weep for
yourselves. There's no cry of dereliction in the
gospel of Luke. There isn't no,
father,
my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken
me? It's not there, right, even though Luke
had Mark Mark in front of him. In
Luke, you know, father, into your hands, I
commend my spirit. He's always in control. So
Luke 22:44
conflicts
with the Luke and Jesus' personality.
That's one thing. Secondly,
this verse interrupts a chiasm
in the compositional structure of Luke's narrative,
which is really interesting. Thirdly,
this verse contains multiple hypoxylogaminoid,
words that do not appear
anywhere else in Luke's gospel.
So that's a good indicator of a secondhand
writing these verses.
Okay. So both external and internal evidence support
the exclusion of this verse.
And, fourthly, I'll I'll add, this verse served
a specific theological purpose.
Luke's gospel was beloved to the Gnostics,
like Marcion, many of whom did not believe
that Jesus had an actual physical body.
So this verse was added by the proto
orthodox
to prove that Jesus did have a physical
body. He's sweating blood.
Right? Now Just just so to interrupt there
a second, Bart Ehrman has written,
a scholarly work called the Orthodox Corruption of
Scripture.
It's an investigation into the, the ascribal alterations
that were made to
the, the manuscript tradition, and the particular example
you mentioned is certainly discussed in in detail,
and with that very point. So if we
just want to,
explore this further, I do recommend, but it's
called the orthodox
corruption of of scripture. It gives many examples
of where later Christian scribes have altered the
text of the new testament,
and we can show this either to further
a more
so called orthodox theology or, other agendas or
adoptionist or patripassionist or whatever. So the text
is constantly being fought over by different scribes
throughout the century. So we're altering it and
changing it again and again and again. Yeah.
But but but you're right. This is this
is a good example that Bart Urban also
brings up. Yeah. But now if we if
we apply yeah. That's an excellent book, the
Orthodox scripture. And if that proves to be
too robust, then he did, like, a simpler
sort of dummies version of it called,
misquoting Jesus. Sure. Yeah. The the old script
is an academic work. It is, I think,
many of our other scholars, but, yeah, you
could it's readable. You're right. He did a
more popular work called
I think it's a different type of American
as in the UK, actually. Yeah. Yeah. So
so what if we applied then,
textual criticism to the satanic verses like I
just did to the gospel of Luke, and
I'll I'll end with this.
With respect to external evidence,
there are 0 manuscripts of the Quran that
contain these verses, the satanic verses. You can
count them on no hands.
There are 0 pira'at of the Quran
that contain these verses. So these verses get
an f. They fail miserably when it comes
to external evidence. Bruce Metzger would give them
an f.
What about internal evidence?
Do these verses agree with the style and
context and choice of words
and message of the Quran? Absolutely not. There
is nothing more antithetical to the message of
the Quran
than these verses.
Also, the there are certain words in these,
like, haraniq is that's a haphoxalagaminan,
very strange world word, you know, these cranes.
You have this, like, form 8 passive
verb, the tortajah,
which is very strange, also a hypoxalagon.
So this is clearly not the author of
the Quran. So these verses fail when it
comes to internal evidence as well. So the
final verdict is that the satanic versus story
from a historical
literary
perspective, does not pass whatsoever. The prophet, peace
be upon him, never spoke in the name
of other gods. He never said anything that
God did not command him to say.
And, ironically, in the very same Surah
how does the Surah begin? Surah Najm.
The Prophet never speaks
from his capris, from his desires. Inhuay Allah
wahiuyuha.
Everything that he says is revelation. Al lamahu
He is taught by 1
mighty in power.
Okay?
So my final conclusion would be that,
that the best candidate
for for Deuteronomy 18 18
is the holy prophet Muhammad, and
I don't think anyone even comes comes close
to him.
Mhmm. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's absolutely marvelous. So
I I I agree. There's a lot of
a lot of detail there, some of which
I've not heard before. I'm
so pleased to have this on tape,
as a resource,
study tool even where as you say, initially,
people should go away, look up the references,
check them,
and investigate this, further. And as I said
also, if you want a a good general
introduction to,
the questions of biblical interpretation, the,
the documentary hypothesis, the Deuteronomistic
history, the history of d, the d school
as as it's known. This book will tell
you everything. It's a good introductory text. Christine
Hayes, I'll link to it.
She teaches at Yale, a
colleague of Dale Martin who who are having
on again in a week or 2.
I've read bits of it. It's very readable,
accessible,
which is why they published it. So,
and also, next week talking in satanic verses,
doctor Shabir Akhtar, who's an academic at the
University of Oxford,
He's a a towering theologian and philosopher.
He's gonna appear next Tuesday of Blogging Theology
talking about, guess what, the satanic verses, but
not the one not the ones that we're
talking about, the, the notorious,
so called novel by Salman Rushdie, the British
writer, and doctor,
Sheba Akhtar will be talking about,
secularism,
freedom of speech,
and the way that Mohammed, the the man
is is,
seen as a, you know, you can
insult him and degrade him in the name
of free speech.
And the implications of this satanic versus novel,
in UK,
literary history. And I know this perhaps not
had a big impact of the states, but
for, the British audience,
I know Shabir Akhtar, and he's an outstanding
intellect, and, I'm sure he'll be very interesting.
So that's a a short, advert for next
time.
But coming back to today, thank you so
much,
professor Ali
Atay, and, for your outstanding,
introduction to these issues. Such a,
a a polyglot. You're so certainly who is
a person who can
operate on so many different registers linguistically
and through various ancient texts, the Bible, the
Quran, and so on. And it's it's a
real treat to have this kind of holistic
synthesized,
exposition of the issues rather than some someone
who's narrowly focused on just one field. You
you are clearly expert on many fields and
is that kind of multidisciplinary
approach we really need when we're talking with
Christians and and Jews and Muslims together about
all these texts. So,
outstanding,
work there. Thank you so much, sir, for
your Thank you. Help. And,
you you you even, suggested you might come
again to talk about other texts like,
Isaiah 42,
which is another key key text
in the Bible much,
discussed today. Countless YouTube videos about it. It'd
be good to have
a a scholarly,
assessment of the evidence, really what does it
say, and, I think he's a very strong
candidate myself
for,
the the prophets,
of of Islam, if I put it that
way, a rather strong candidate for that,
passage.
Thank you. Is there anything else you wanted
to say, sir, before
we, conclude? Thank you. Thank you for having
me, and, you know, I,
again, I, encourage people to,
subscribe to the channel.
And this is
this is,
this is what it's all about. Right? It's
it's it's God talk. It's theology.
May God continue to bless you, Paul, and,
looking forward to coming back.
Thank you so much. Good to have you,
but you're very welcome. And I know there
are many, many people who will watch this,
and and will will benefit from the norm.
I know from your last time you were
on blogging theology, the huge
positive,
and almost ecstatic,
response that people had to what you were
saying. I was quite quite overwhelmed by it.
So, I'm sure that'd be the same. And,
anyway, thank you very much. I'll I'll end
it there. I think it's been 2 hours,
but,
it went by very quickly. So thank you
very much indeed. Thank you,
Paul. Take care.