Recordings › Salman Rushdie & The Satanic Verses | Mufti Abu Layth · 19 Aug 2022 › Segment 14 of 21
Is Quran 22:52 about the satanic verses incident?
haj pilgrimage hadj muftis shaitan shaytaan iblis iblees shayateen shayatin devil koran quraan al-quran sura soorah surat suwar soora chapter ayah aya ayaat aayah aayat mecca makka mekka al-madinah madeenah yathrib ulema ulamaa scholarsHow the story was tied to Quran 22:52, and why Mufti Abu Layth calls it absurd
Most recent answer on Contested verses34 earlier answers on this topic, oldest 2018 ↓
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This segment1:09:22 to 1:14:40 · 5 min 18 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenNo: he rejects the link to 22:52, noting that Surah al-Hajj is Madinan, that the Prophet refused the Makkans' offers of compromise, and that the Quran calls the idols mere stone.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth says the story entered Islamic transmission through narrations from certain recurring names, some claiming the Prophet praised the gods once because he so wanted his people to accept Islam and later realised his mistake, and linking it to Surah al-Hajj 22:52, that Satan cast something into the wish of every earlier prophet and God then annulled it. Others, he says, proposed that the Prophet fell silent and Satan spoke in his voice, so that people thought the Prophet had praised their gods. He calls all of this absurd: Surah al-Hajj is a Madinan surah, and if the Prophet had been willing to compromise he could simply have accepted the Makkans' well-known offer of wealth and power in return for accommodating their gods, the very refusal for which they persecuted the Muslims. He adds that the Makkan surahs call these idols dumb, blind stone carvings, so it makes no sense for the Prophet to call them lofty beings whose intercession is hoped for.
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Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the story that the Prophet praised the idols, or that Satan spoke in his voice, is absurd, and that 22:52, in a Madinan surah, has nothing to do with it.
“first of all this verse is not speaking about anything to do with that okay this verse suratul hajj right is in the surah of hajj which is an issue of madinah”
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and indeed the intercession will be sought on the day of judgment now this is the alleged story that the prophet said this he praised the deities and said this is the satanic verses why the satanic verses this then finds its way into this finds its way into islamic transmission people start saying there's narrations about this
once again you get certain common names they start saying yeah these narrations oh look this was said these people said the prophet said this so okay how could the prophet have said this some people very sad that oh the prophet said this because he really wanted to he wanted his people to come on board that much that he felt what if i compromised a
little bit and just praised them once and he did it and it worked and then later on he realized i made a mistake i should never have praised their gods and they said this is apparently what this verse of the quran is talking about the verse we covered today that
this verse right what's going on here that of surah hajj verse 52 that we did not send a prophet before you except that when he desired something shaytan threw onto his desire like he added to it so allah rendered it invalid
so allah then corrected the quran so this is what some people said they said well now some people then said oh nobody right yeah that's an issue so maybe what happened was the prophet was reciting surah najim he reached this point and went quiet and the shaytan spoke this in a voice people hearing thought that's the prophet's voice
and therefore they said the prophet praised our gods we've got no problem with him all of this is ridiculously absurd and utterly stupid utterly because look first of all let's let's just take a look at this and i'll show you that and i'll show you i'll bring up some of these things in a moment first of all this verse is not speaking about anything to do with that okay
this verse suratul hajj right is in the surah of hajj which is an issue of madinah the surah of hajj is to do with madina now somebody could say well this verse came before but no but the surah is from medina to start off with secondly let's okay let's see this hypothesis what's the hypothesis so the hypothesis is that the prophet first hypothesis the prophet was so keen on his people embracing islam that he decided to praise their gods
well then all he had to do was what they were saying it is well known that the early makkans had said to the prophet look just compromise a tiny bit we will give you you know the famous incident that we will give you the moon and the sun in your hands and you can marry old we'll give you all this world just tone it down a little bit they said that look we have no problem with allah just accommodate slightly for our gods this was the thing this is why they were persecuting the muslims so if the prophet was
okay to do that what was so what was going on then to start off with secondly let's just take a look at what is being said which were what statues carved out a stone what do the other sur ayat of makkah say that these statues that do they la they don't speak they're dumb they're blind they don't these are just stone carvings how inna these are such
lofty beings that they that these that these stone carvings are such lofty beings that on the day of judgment wow we can't wait for these to help you out ridiculously absurd this is why many of the ulama of islam oh sorry especially the malikiah very clearly made it very clear that look all of these things are utterly absurd they have no standing the is nerds are utterly let me just bring this
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Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2022-08-19-S14, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/14/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2022, August 19). Is Quran 22:52 about the satanic verses incident? [Video, segment 2022-08-19-S14, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/14/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2022. "Is Quran 22:52 about the satanic verses incident?" Video, segment 2022-08-19-S14, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded August 19, 2022. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/14/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2022-08-19-S14, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Is Quran 22:52 about the satanic verses incident?}}, year = {2022}, month = {8}, date = {2022-08-19}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/14/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t0phqrnjjby/s/14/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2022-08-19-S14, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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