4004 BC

4004 BC is presented in The Satanic Verses as a date assigned to the creation of the world, not as an independently narrated historical event. It occurs in a handwritten note in Alleluia Cone’s copy of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where it anchors a chronology that also estimates the apocalypse for 1996. The date’s importance lies in that pairing: a fixed origin and a projected end are made part of a private annotation, then brought into the present when Gibreel Farishta reads it aloud.

The Date in the Flyleaf

Alleluia’s copy of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell bears marks from her younger years, including underlinings and marginal signs. Gibreel reads selections from the book and finds her flyleaf note, which reads: “Creation of world acc. Arch— bish. Usher, 4004 BC. Estim’d date of apocalypse, …, 1996.” The annotation attributes the creation date to Usher and places the anticipated apocalypse within a finite span of time. The ellipsis leaves a gap between the two dates rather than explaining how the writer reckons the years between them.

Read Aloud in the Present

The date enters the scene through Gibreel’s reading, not through a narrator’s account of creation. He uses the note to tease Alleluia about the time remaining before its estimated apocalypse; she signals him to stop, and he does. The exchange makes the chronology personal and immediate: a speculative end of the world becomes part of an intimate conversation, while Alleluia’s gesture sets a limit on how far the joke can go.

Competing Accounts of Time and Revelation

The note’s dated creation and predicted end sit alongside other, sharply different claims about time and religious authority in the novel. The Imam, speaking through Bilal’s radio transmission, calls for revolt against history and presents completed revelation as a reason to reject later knowledge and the idea of progress. Mahound, by contrast, struggles with the source and meaning of what he hears as revelation: he describes his listening as bound to his deepest self, while still questioning what he should recite. Later, Mirza Saeed challenges Ayesha over the words she attributes to an angel, asking why she gives interpretations rather than precise quotations. These episodes do not explain or verify the flyleaf’s 4004 BC; they place its confident, calendrical claim within a narrative where the authority to describe origins, endings, and divine speech remains contested.