Satanic verses are Ibn Ishaq page 161 ff

Submitted by Henrik Ræder Clausen (Denmark), Oct 12, 2006 at 18:47

The 'Satanic verses' incident you inquire about is described in Ibn Ishaq in the chapter that starts page 161. A few pages inside, we learn that after accepting the deal with the custodians of the Ka'aba, Muhammad starts to worship Allah and the other idols of the Ka'aba, while the polytheists accepts the god that Muhammad was preaching before (possibly Al-Ahman from Yemen). This is also the place where the Muslims adopt the prostrations which, as the other four pillars of Islam, are directly derived from the pagan religion in Mecca.

The 'Satanic verses' incident appears to have lasted a year. Unfortunately this is the only major pause in the written history about Muhammad. Ibn Hisham, who rescued the work of Ibn Ishaq, made a note that some of the most incriminated passages from Ibn Ishaq had been removed in order not to taint the image of the prophet. This year might be one of those passages.

The 'Satanic verses' incident include delivering luxuries and women to Muhammad. His first wife died very convineintly just in those days, and three weeks later Muhammad entered the famous marriage with Aisha. He would probably had had other wives or concubines during that period, as Aisha was underage.

The incident was to last one year. It is clear that the other Meccans were dissatisfied with it, but their reason is unknown. They meant to beat up Muhammad, but he was smart enough to substitute his son for himself, and got out without hurt.

A long story short, he then migrated to Yathrib, which soon changed name to Medina. There he kept his allegiance to Allah, but discarded the minor idols of the Ka'aba. Prostrations and the other pillars remained, and the direction of prayer - initially Jerusalem - was soon directed towards the Ka'aba.

As you can see, the Satanic Verses episode is actually quite central to Muhammads life. It's a shame we do not know more about it or the year it apparently lasted.

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