The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2154 page)

 
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Satanic Verses
.

Verses insinuated into the
Qur’
n
by al-Shayt
n (
Satan
), when Mu
ammad was uttering authentic verses. But God cancels (
naskh
) anything that Satan throws in.
The phrase has become notorious as the title of a novel by Salman Rushdie (1988), which elicited a
fatw
from the Ayatollah
Khumayni
, placing the author under sentence of death—in effect for
apostasy
, followed by the bringing of Islam into ridicule—though more colloquially for blasphemy.

 
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see
MARRIAGE
(Hinduism).

 
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atapatha Br
hma
a
.

The ‘Br
hma
a of a Hundred Paths’, is the longest and fullest
br
hma
a
. It is attached to the White
Yajur Veda
, and its
ra
yaka
is the
B
had
ranyaka Upani
ad
. It describes the five great sacrificial ceremonies,
v
japeya
,
r
jas
ya
,
a
vamedha
,
puru
amedha
, and
sarvamedha
, and it reveals much of the political and religious condition of late Vedic times.