The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses are words of "satanic suggestion" that Muhammad is alleged to have mistaken for divine revelation. The words praise the three pagan Meccan goddesses: al-Lāt, al-'Uzzá, and Manāt, and can be read in early prophetic biographies of Muhammad by al-Wāqidī, Ibn Sa'd and the tafsir of al-Tabarī. The first use of the expression in English is attributed to Sir William Muir in 1858. The phrase Arab historians and later Muslims used to describe the incident of the withdrawn verses was not "Satanic verses", but the gharaniq verses; the phrase "Satanic verses" was unknown to Muslims, and was coined by Orientalist Western academics specialising in the study of cultures considered eastern. The story itself is not found in Shiite sources or the six Sahih of the Sunni, so much so that Muraghi, in his commentary, says: "These traditions are undoubtedly a fabrication of the heretics and foreign hands, and have not been found in any of the a...