Minor characters throughout Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses utilize religion as a means to achieve their personal desires rather than spiritual salvation. Throughout the novel, the characters that appear in Gibreel’s dreams and hallucinations are depicted utilizing the advantages that come with religious practices, whether they be power, health, or sexual satisfaction, to further their own agendas. The characters of the Imam, Mishal and Saeed Mirza, and the Prophet Mahound are the most egregious beneficiaries of religion and its power, and, by far, gain the most from their actions.
The Imam used Bilal X, an American convert, as a mouthpiece to instruct the people of Jerusalem, who were under the Empress Ayesha’s rule, to “make a revolution…a …show more content…
However, he eventually becomes corrupted by power. The first steps toward corruption began when Mahound allowed Gibreel to win the wrestling fight, thus allowing the Satanic Verses to spring from his lips. Gibreel informed the reader that both the first revelation and its subsequent repeal came from him, and in each case were somehow forced from him by Mahound. Gibreel states that "[Mahound] did his old trick, forcing my mouth open and making the Voice pour out of me...From my mouth, both the statement and the repudiation, verses and converses, universes and reverses, the whole thing, and we all know how my mouth got worked" (Rushdie, 126). It's clear that Mahound intentionally lost the wrestling match between himself and Gibreel in order to satisfy his own desire--to hear a revelation from Gibreel, whether it be one from God or the Devil. Twenty-five years after the revelation and repudiation of the Satanic Verses, Mahound had become a ruthless theocrat. Salman, Mahound’s former scribe, revealed the convenient timing of Mahound’s recitations, and how “useful and well-timed the angel’s revelations tended to be, so that when the faithful were disputing Mahound’s views on any subject…the angel would turn up…and always support Mahound” (Rushdie, 377). Salman’s subsequent alterations of Mahound’s recitations brought to light their original nature—for Salman’s significant changes to go unnoticed, the words spoken by Mahound must have come from his own mind, not the mind of God, thus depicting Mahound’s corruption and self-obsessiveness in light of his new power and influence. Salman goes on to suggest that Mahound’s recitations regarding women, their treatment, and their behavior, reflecting his own views, as it was well-known that Mahound “didn’t like his women to answer back” (Rushdie, 378). It had become clear that Mahound was