The Nature Of The Satan

 

 

THE NATURE OF THE SATAN

 

The character Satan is severally depicted in the Qur’an in the following lines:

 

He predates Adam, his genus is not human but genie (jinn), normally invisible to man but living in man almost symbiotically. From his invisible quarters he is using every opportunity to seduce man to rebel against Allah and his seductions include monetary greed, excessive political ambition, sexual, vengeful and murderous instincts. All boil down to selfishness and pride, both so strong that the person concerned shall stop at nothing in order to satisfy them. The reason why the genie (jinni) Iblis Satan refused to bow to man was that he was too proud, too self-important and ambitious for that. 

 

Now let us look with reason and realism- do not these urges describe the lowest in our psychology? Cannot these subjective forces of evil coalesce into a personality image living in us alongside an opposite Personality Image which can act as a censor and brakes on the evil promptings of that dark personality department in us? Do we not at times think and may we not act like a devil as a result? May we then not feel terrible remorse when our passions die down and wish that we were dead or something?
If the answer to above questions is yes then we can see that the innocent, unsuspecting Adam and  the decidedly evil and treacherous Iblis (Satan) figures are the two poles of our psychology or to use the more common and more adequate term, our ‘soul’. The more we take sides with the lower side of our psychology the more we commit crimes while if we choose to avoid the former and instead live and act from the luminous, noble side of our psychology we can both effortlessly and joyfully commit acts of great kindness, generosity, justice and other moral heroism. If these do not amount to superb examples of profoundest psychoanalysis which inspired more constructively the great psychiatrists like Dr Jung and less constructively Dr Freud what then is in religious literature which the Divinely inspired Word of God the Qur’an is the supreme and perfect example? In fact the Qur’an is the only major religious scripture to reveal so much about the mythical-metaphorical nature of spiritual stories depicting sentient beings under God, namely angels, genies and men. This totally transforms the task of the more enlightened and profound religious mentor like a Sufi master to address and persuade and motivate modern man to become his very best as a graceful moral human being which should be all that is to religious faith as far as character formation and pious living and social values and habits are concerned.

 

Yes, there are secrets beyond that but they are not really available to those without the first success referred to just above. It is beyond reasonable doubt that any visions and true or supposed insights of mystics, be they Muslim or not, are derived from their own accumulated spiritual formation and the size and quality of this formation can vary from the most satanically delusional to Divinely truthful and glorious. Allah grants best insights to those with best intentions and most honourable efforts and highest loyalty to His prophets, most specifically and comprehensively to the last and necessarily greatest and most privileged of them, our master Muhammad sallahhalu alaihi wa sellem. Only the Qur’an given him and his personal advice and example survived the treacheries of time and human corruption and that must be for a good reason. The fact is that he is the ‘Mustafa’, the Chosen One, not only by the testimony of faith but history itself.   

     

You perhaps noticed that in the sentence put in italics above I am implying a third and higher level of self which is aware of the described two sides to our nature, one a dark soul chamber of evils and the other full of light and goodness. You can testify to it yourself I am sure; all of us I believe have this self-awareness of a moral division and dilemma in our psychology. While one part of us lusts after and demands things it has no legitimate claim to the other and the opposite fights back to control and stop the first. A failure in checking our evil side results in a shameful act religion calls a sin while both a win and a voluntary act of justice or kindness religion calls a meritorious act which in Islam is called a ‘thawab’ or ‘sevap’ as Turks and Persians call it.

 

This third higher self is called conscience in secular terminology while in religious thinking it can best be seen as the voice of God through His angelic connection with us. That Allah does talk to us in His Own way must be obvious from a verse like “The self (nafs) and the One Who created it and inspired to it its ungodliness and godliness- whoever purifies it (the nafs) is surely saved and whoever messes it up is disappointed” ().

 

We obviously see from above that Allah as the Creator of human soul does always keep in contact with it and appearing to be the person’s conscience inspires in the person either a sense of impropriety or one of propriety as regards the person’s intended acts which impression continues after the act is committed if it is committed at all. Of course the assumption here is that the person has been instructed in morality to begin with which is the normal practice in all societies. Exceptions may exist but rules remain rules. 

         

So, fundamentally speaking the Satan is a dark rival spirit inhabiting us parasitically alongside our Godly spirit blown into us by our Creator from His Own. The fist duty of every moralist then is to make his pupils aware of the bipolarity of the human soul and explain to them that this is not a letdown or neglect by God but a very ingenuous if risky way of developing our moral and spiritual aesthetic potential by casting it into an uneasy shoulder-rubbing with its opposite the satanic spirit. This throws a very revealing light on the Satan:

 

Unbeknown to him the Satan serves as our greatest helper in developing our Godliness (taqwa) through constant and intense moral struggle in ourselves. Had he been aware of this trap Allah have entrapped him in he would just burst into flame and smoke and be self-destroyed! Please remember that we are again talking in metaphors about matters
which is very difficult to treat otherwise if at all. Truthful and helpful myths (and there are untruthful and unhelpful myths like the Trinity or reincarnation which only mystify but not inform) appeal to our spiritual yearnings and promote our spiritual development of which practical morality is the most valuable and desirable fruit. There are many other fruits for sure, like foresight, psychological insight, prophetic inspirations and angelic contact and help to name but a few. True saints of the One and Only God and all true prophets taught and preached and do have this help from God as the following verses indicate:

 

“Those who say ‘Our Lord is Allah’ and then walk the straight path- on them angels come down saying ‘Do not fear and do not aggrieve but rejoice with the good-news of the Garden which you have been promised. We are your caretaking friends in this world and the next, in where are for you all that you hunger after and in where are all that you may care to call for- as hospitality from the Merciful Forgiver” ()     

 

To sum up then: the Satan is our worst and in fact only real and permanent enemy, he lives in us like a parasite and will harm us each and every time we dare to live from our purely bestial instincts which cause immoral competitiveness and aggression, instead of living from God as He represents Himself in our soul.

To sum up, the Satan as far as our psychology (more properly put, our  psychological states important in our conducting ourselves) is concerned is that centre in our soul which acts as an opponent of the other centre which acts in our best interests in mind, the luminous centre where a belief in Allah resides and a contact with Him All-Gracious is ever-present. The more we listen to and move from this luminous centre the less the Satan in us can claim and use us and the more the balance of our feelings and actions shift to the Right Side where we become from ‘ashab al yamin’, i.e. ‘the people of righteousness’ meaning of blessed inclinations and conduct.

 

Seeing the Satan in this light takes out the terror associated with the concept of a devil outside our power and puts the said spiritual beast into our hands to fight back and beat. That terror of Satan which may overwhelm and paralyse religious believers and can therefore become a tool in the hands of psychological abusers called witches cashing on it disappears and equipped with the righteous love of God and fear of God the believer attains a position where he can benefit from the invincible help and protection of God in him and take underfoot the now exposed and humiliated Satan in him.

 

Let us take an imaginary but realistic example. A believer who is so matured in his view of Allah and the Satan that he can confidently identify any suggestion made from inside his heart or by another person outside him is in possession of a most enviable vantage point. A suggestion from Allah whether in the form of an inner inclination or a word from another servant of Allah pleases him and motivates him to do some new good. That is because a beacon in his heart reveals to him the appropriateness and goodness of the suggested course of action. For example, a greedy person asks for something with a hint of some shame in his face. One naturally may think that punishing the greedy person by denying him his request is the right response. But this may create a dangerous feeling of resentment and malice in the heart of the person so frustrated. This serves only the interests of the Satan however. The right course should be to oblige the requester. It will then be seen that he will blush with a mixture of satisfaction and more shame and the shame mixed with satisfaction may well poison his satisfaction and lead to eventual repentance.

 

To support this I remember a hadith which I cannot remember the source of. It goes like this: A rather loose or silly woman sees the Messenger of Allah (S) eating something and asks a bit to be given her. The ever gracious Prophet of Allah (S) duly hands her a choice piece but becoming bolder the woman asks for the morsel the Prophet (S) was already chewing on. Now please do not be disgusted: Among Arabs at least, sharing a morsel already chewed by another was an indication of close and warm relationship between the two persons involved and most commonly applied to mothers who chewed up some food to make it suitable to be swallowed by her young baby yet without adequate teeth. Sometimes this nonchalant intimacy could prevail between two close friends and naturally between lovers. The Prophet (S) in his usual unlimited kindness tolerated even this dash and handed the morsel to the woman. As soon as she took it into her mouth says the narrator a profound sign of shame covered the woman’s face and afterwards she became a very properly chaste and decent woman. When I had read this beautiful hadith I myself felt that I also had grown up more in my capacity for shame and therefore higher morality. After all had not the Prophet (sws) said “Al hayau min al iman”, i.e. sense of shame is part of faith. Allahu Akbar! 

 

Since being a Sufi is identifying with and emulating the Messenger of Allah in every possible moral and character-wise way accommodating almost any immature or deviant person in ways leading to his repentance and therefore salvation is crucial in Sufism and is part of that central tenet of  it we may call ‘the winning of hearts’. Had not the Messenger of God converted his erstwhile enemy Safwan b. Umayya,  one of the notorious chieftains of yet unconverted Quraish nobility, when he had granted him a big flock of  best red camels at the end of the Battle of Hunain when Safwan was a guest of the Prophet to witness the battle at his side? Once the battle was miraculously won thanks to a blinding wind turning against the pagan enemy caused their rout the property they left behind was a spectacle to see. Uncountable numbers of sheep, goats and camels were left stranded all over the battlefield and mesmerised persons like Safwan who were worshippers of this world. The Prophet seeing Safwan’s growing desire for a share of this splendid prosperity granted him a large number of best camels with no conditions attached.  By satisfying his greed so unexpectedly and on such a scale Safwan’s nerves simply broke down and he could not help saying “Oh! Only a prophet from Allah could be so generous” and testified to Islam there and then.

 

 

BEATING SATAN

 

Well, I think no more is necessary on this subject. All above should give enough idea as to what and who is the Satan and how it can be contained and then condemned to impotency.
Still some summing and rounding up may be good. We must be aware at all times that the Satan is always not far away and is in fact clandestinely inhabiting our system just like dangerous parasites or bacteria which parasitically live all over and inside all of us at all times. The reason why we do not feel them and do not fall ill with them is because our immune system is capabe of checking them.

 

Once, God forbid, our immune systems fails against such parasites then they quickly spread and infect us God knows with what consequences. We take refuge in Allah. The same applies to the Satan. He is our spiritual parasite which will never go away but need be kept under control at all time lest he invades and infects us effectively. So watch o Sufi all your mental states to see whether your nature is deteriorating with the emergence of lustful, greedy, angry and hasty feelings and desires and promptings and disinfect your insides with more remembrance of and obedience to Allah and conformity with the Prophet of Allah (S). Act generously for example when a voice in you advises miserliness and act chastely when temptation knocks. Know that every time you give a beating to the Satan in you Allah sends a new blessing and bestows  a higher rank on you. A point of no return may come when the Satan despairs of ever deceiving you and sulks in a corner at last himself dejected and feeling impotent. Amen. 

 

 

22.  SALVATION IS THANKING ALLAH- HOW TO THANK HIM

 

THE CAST IRON GUARANTEE FROM THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY

 

Says the Almighty, All-Wise, All-Gracious:

 

“What use it is to Allah to punish you while you thank and believe?” (4:147)

 

Which means all punishment (as distinct from just pain) results from our unworthy, demeaning behaviours.

 

Let us explore this a bit. As we said, pain and punishment are not the same thing. Not every punishment is necessarily painful (at least for a while) nor every pain is punishment from God, that is to say a retribution for a guilt. Beginning with the second, namely pain not suffered on account of a guilt, this is natural to all sentient (conscious) creatures whether animal or man, young or old, sinner or saint. The reason for this liability is that as creatures we cannot have a plain sailing of a life from the moment we are born to the moment we breathe our last. That is because creation means nothing but a differentiation in something which used to be uniform. Suppose you are in a room where everything is pure white and drenched in a light provided by some all-surrounding light system which illuminates all objects in its path equally on all surfaces of those objects. I can guarantee to you that if you are an observer in that room you will not see any of the objects in it, including the walls themselves. Why? Because things become visible when the light rays reflected by them are of different intensity and colour. Can you see a man covered in a black something from top to toe and the two of you is in a very dark room? No! But allow in some small light by parting the curtains or let the man dress in white and you may be able to discern him. Similarly you will feel neither cold or hot when you dip your hand in a bowl of water which is exactly at the same temperature as your hand. Add to this water some hot or cold water and then you will feel accordingly.

 

 

MORE ON CREATION

 

Apparently creation or perceptible existence is when differentiation sets in somewhere. That creation began as a separation of an initially unified, imperceptible something is confirmed both by science and the Qur’an.

 

Science says that all began with a Big Bang (explosion) from an infinitesimal something which contained all time, space, mass and energy rolled up in itself without amounting to any volume.  As the explosion spread time, space, mass, energy and laws of nature... all were born at speeds exceeding that of the light as we have it now. The present experiment at CERN in Switzerland is an attempt to test this compelling theory.

The good-news for us Muslim believers is that, as always, our Qur’an has been ahead of all such theories, discoveries and developments because it is the Word of the Creator. Read if you wish “Did not those who blaspheme see that the heavens and the earth were stuck together and we split them apart and that We created every living thing from water. Why not then embrace faith? (21: 30), and “The sky, We built it up with power and indeed We have been its Expanders” (51: 47). Here sky must mean space or more properly space with all its contents. And lastly we may quote the verse “His whole bid when He wills something is just to say to it ‘Be!’ and it is” (36: 72).

 

This last verse fits the Big Bang episode into the ‘Be! And it is’ suddenness, i.e. Allah said a Divine big “Be!” and the universe said a creaturely big “Bang!’ and exploded into existence at no time and since then it has been expanding. The verse last quoted observes  the continuous expansion of the universe and the one before it observers that all objects in the universe were initially one body which nowadays is called the Higgs Particle and ironically enough also ‘God Particle’. This can be seen as a great ‘Freudian slip’. Named after the great if often misguided psychiatrist Dr Sigmund Freud (1856- 1939), a Freudian slip means an unintended slip of tongue when a sudden confession is spilt out without realising and therefore disclosing the secret without intending. The person concerned has had  a great psychological inhibition in the matter in question, does not normally retain a memory of it and cannot therefore disclose it. He can only blurt out the often guilty secret when he is overwhelmed by a situation with a bearing on the matter suppressed in his unconscious mind. Accordingly, an atheist’s calling that initial volumeless something which contained all universe ‘the God Particle’ leaks out his unconscious or suppressed belief in God. To pick up from where we left of, with Allah’s Command ‘Be!’ this initial all-put-and-stuck-together something exploded out with a Big Bang and began to expand and produce time, space, mass and energy etc. All came about in a dizzying spectacle of unimaginable power and precision! Hence Allah’s Word “The sky, we built it up with Power and We have been its expanders” above.

 

This brings us back to our ‘creation is differentiation’ theory. As far as our subject is concerned this theory gives us this: Our sufferings are an inseparable condition or law of our existence and saint or sinner all of us have to suffer some pain if we are to feel our existence, that is to say, being conscious of both ourselves and our environment. Only by knowing pain we may know pleasure, only by becoming hungry can we enjoy food.

 

 

ON PUNISHMENT

 

Punishment is something else and as we said it may or may not be painful. Let me give you an example of a painless punishment. A person of apparently great honour and distinguished record someday somehow yields to a shameful temptation and then to another and then to another until he loses all sense of shame and ends up a closet sinner, i.e. one sinning shamelessly behind closed doors but otherwise continuing to show a public persona (mask) of total decency. Will not be the continuous descent of this man into theft, deceit and indecency seen as a punishment for his moral recklessness caused by his yielding to his lower and dirtier instincts? What is more, some more perceptive people will see that this man is not his same old self and under his mask of decency a real face of shameless daring is vaguely visible. It is like seeing vaguely the eyes of a man who is wearing a pair of dark glasses though which only the strong-sighted can see, but just. For an spiritually literate or aware man this closet sinner is undergoing a terrible punishment at a subconscious level which one day or at the moment of death at the latest shall come out and consume him like hell. Personally I have seen people who used to be so pious and decent that they had strong signs of some sainthood.

 

Then one day, after a long time of feeling that some unpleasantness gradually began to come over them I learned or they confessed that they were no more interested in piety, at least not as strongly as before; instead, they began to pile up a big record of crime and shame, like obtaining benefits by deception  or indulging their illicit lusts without shame. All such outcomes are painless punishments in the eyes of the spiritually perceptive and the person’s life career may end up in such shame that even he will see it for what it is and be shocked by his guilt.


Yet it is far more often the case that we feel punished for our sins and regret that we ever commited them. Knowing this punishment is sign that Allah still loves us except for what wrong we did and is therefore warning us against a repetition. When the sinner becomes too hardened to feel any remorse or shame the feeling bad about sins stops and a satanic satisfaction with his dirty self takes over. As a result he attends the mosque less and less, for example, and a day may come when he begins to talk against everything religious or spiritual.

 

As for the painful punishment for sins, this is the ‘privilege’ of truly God-fearing if yet too imperfect believers. The punishment is self-inflicted in a sense: because the believer’s conscience is hurting it conspires to unburden itself by cooperating with the other powers of the mind to hatch a plot of vengeance on its owner, like making it to itch subconsciously for an accident and therefore driving recklessly. In fact nothing punishes as skilfully and adequately than a hurting guilty conscience and this is at the basis of all moral education including the one in religious format. Morality is created by creating and developing a conscience and even the members of most evil gangs need a kind of morality and its sanctions to function smoothly. Accordingly members guilty of betraying ‘al capo’ or the chief may be tried by a tribunal of senior gangsters and executed on the spot. What is more the convict does feel guilty and will beg for pardon and mercy though he knows only too well that these concepts are not in the vocabulary of the mafia he is a member of.  In fact a criminal organisation has all the gross characteristics of a religious cult and many in fact are religiously based like some Muslim and Christian cults throughout history notorious for their anti-establishment attitudes and atrocious acts. The bestially ruthless and violent cult members are like small apologetic children when it comes facing their leaders as the accused party, leaders who hold a life and death authority over them. Consider a suicide bomber- he or she is under so great and ruthless moral pressure that he or she more fears failing the mission given than dying in its implementation.

 

Thankfully Islam is nowhere one such cult; instead it takes full cognizance of normal people’s weakness and moral limitations and does neither ask for impossible sacrifice nor punishes cowardice- totally unlike misguided cults and ideologies like nationalism and communism. For example the Prophet’s poet Hassan b. Thab’t never took part in any military campaign. He was excused on account of his self-confessed cowardice. Which modern army could accept such an excuse? See the Prophet’s humanity in the face of many mortal dangers his mission entailed!  Hassan was not even allowed to feel guilty. Against this fact I remember a peculiar example of undue conscience and unreasonable self-punishment from the Turkish war of independence under Mustafa Kemal Pasha. During the final great battle of Dumlupinar (late august 1922) a certain officer talking on the phone to the pasha promised to capture a given enemy position within an hour. When he failed he shot himself and this was taken by some as a greatly honourable act.

 

For his part the pasha regretted the event and not quite approve. Now, such extreme sense of responsibility may be seen as justified heroics in a secular cult like nationalism but in Islam it is seen as blasphemy and the self-killed man is believed to go straight to hell. The right idea is that a living man is more useful to the cause he is fighting for than a dead one, allowing time to offer better alternatives to self-destruction. Neither Allah nor His Prophet allowed self-destruction under any circumstances nor did they ever punish either cowardice or desertion on other grounds. As the knowers of human nature they allowed for all human frailties and only issued friendly rebukes when these frailties caused some avoidable problems. As a result not only their armies won at least as brilliant victories as any other but their wars avoided almost all the brutal excesses of other armies with less godliness in them if at all.  Read this piece of Revelation if you want- the occasion was a heavy reverse at the Battle of Uhud when Muslims were just about to route the idolaters but some had left their positions prematurely despite their commander the Prophet (sws) having strongly advised the not to move before he sent them news that they could.


The brilliant cavalry commander of the enemy saw his opportunity and attacked from behind whereby defeat came more near the Muslims than the pagans and several Muslims were needlessly killed. As a result the pagans could claim a victory of sorts while Muslims were greatly discomfited and demoralised. Thankfully the enemy did not dare to press for more but went their way in some good cheer letting Muslims lick their wounds and recriminate among themselves. Then the Revelation came down “... when what was inflicted on your enemy (your defeating them at Badr) was inflicted on you (at Uhud) you said ‘whence this’? Say (o Prophet) ’It is from yourselves’ (caused by your own failings)... (3: 165) and previous to it was the verse “Then you (o Prophet) had treated them softly (despite their error). Had you been hard of heart they would certainly have long dispersed from around you. Therefore forgive them and beg for their forgiveness (by Allah) and consult them on all matters” (3: 159). What do we see from these verses?

 

Why, do we not see that despite his incomparable prestige and authority the Messenger of Allah was never overbearing towards his companions but was considerate towards and lenient to them and almost democratic in his running of the communal and military affairs. Unlike almost all ambitious commanders he never asked his fighters to attempt suicidal heroics let alone compelling them to attack the enemy too recklessly like almost all religious and ideological fanatics were and could do. In other words in the Prophet’s armies, there were no groups intended to be spent as canon-fodder (like the bashi bazouks of used by later by some Muslim commanders) but the lives of all were regarded equally precious. Not even the armies of modern democratic countries are so humanely spared indiscriminate suicidal mass use.         

               

All in all, a believers’ punishing experiences are seen as the results of his mistakes and especially his sins, not so much by others but by the believer concerned. A true believer will not complain to Allah about a painful experience in his life if he believes that he brought it on himself but may complain if he sincerely believes that it was an act of injustice by others. The more mature and perceptive a believer the more self-blaming he is and the more profit he will make from his self-blaming habit. You see, he has a well-developed conscience and habit of self-surveillance whereby he is able both to own up to his share of responsibility for a painful experience of his and have the motivation to fulfil any obligations and pay any compensation indicated in the end. In other words a mature believer punishes himself before Allah does it for him. He truly has a greatly sensitive noble conscience.

 


 

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