The Satanic Versus: Pt.1
But Muhammad soon retracted the reconciliation — how soon is not clear. For the account continues that Jibril (Gabriel), the angel of revelation, informed Muhammad that Satan had used Muhammad’s desire for reconciliation with the pagan leaders to insert into the revelation of God the verses about the interceding cranes, otherwise called “the satanic verses”. The verses which follow, not the satanic verses, serve as the proper sequence to 53:19,20 (above):
Are yours the males and His the females?
That indeed were an unfair division! (53:21,22)
In other words: When you Arabs have sons (whom you prefer to daughters!), how unfair of you to say that God has daughters! The idea of a plurality of gods or goddesses or sons or daughters of God is ridiculous. God alone is God. The three goddesses are false. [http://www.answering-islam.org/Hahn/satanicverses.htm]
The Satanic Verses refers to an alleged incident in the history of Islam in which Muhammad received a revelation from Satan and presented it as part of the Qur’an.
In the pre-Islamic paganism of Mecca, Allah was one god among many, but was the chief of the pantheon. But beneath him were various subordinate deities, including his daughters Allat, Manat, and Al-Uzza. Muhammad rejected the worship of these other deities, insisting upon the worship of Allah alone. This rejection upset many of the people of Mecca who were accustomed to worshipping these other deities.
The implications are very strong for Islam. If true, the tale implies many things — that at one point, Muhammad was bending to local polytheist pressure, that not all of Muhammad’s revelations were divine, and thirdly Allat, Manat, and Al-Uzza were all feminine, which is important in such a patriarchal religion as Islam. Muslims are also vehement in claiming Allah has no offspring, not Allat, Manat, and Al-Uzza, and certainly not Jesus, who they consider a prophet, not a part of divinity. It may have been a political expediency as well, perhaps Muhammad trying to curry favour with the local Quraysh tribe who controlled Mecca, and the shrine of the Ka’aba.
It also implies that for at least some of the Quran, Muhammad was winging it.
This tale was repeated by a number of early Muslim writers, apparently without thinking that it made Muhammad look bad. However, it would seem that someone who receives revelations from Satan cannot be a true prophet. For that reason, contemporary Muslims reject the veracity of the account. Muhammad himself claimed that all prophets were tested by Satan and inspired with demonic verses that appeared to come from God as he was. Still skeptics wonder if more of the Qur’an could be from Satan.
