Concerning Iblis, Satan, the Muhammadans, and the Phrase (God is the Greatest!)
Published in August 12, 2018
Translated by: Ahmed Fathy
We have received this question via an email message from a male sender; we quote part of this message followed by our reply.
(... Dear Dr. Mansour ... I've just read your book titled "Islam Is the Religion of the Truth" (found in English on this link: http://www.ahl-alquran.com/arabic/book_main.php?main_id=106); in the Article No. 6 of this book, one reads the following phrase: (God's religion is the Truth, whereas the so many of Satan's religions are mere lies, myths and falsehoods)... My question is as follows: Does Satan tell lies indeed? The Quran, I think, does not mention that Satan tells lies or is associated with lies; one reads that Satan is a proud, arrogant tempter and that his deep-seated hatred for human beings (the progeny of Adam) makes him whisper evil deeds and thoughts into the souls of human beings ... In this verse: "But Satan whispered to them, to reveal to them their nakedness, which was invisible to them. He said, "Your Lord has only forbidden you this tree, lest you become angels, or become immortals."" (7:20), I think that Satan did not tell a lie; he merely tempted Adam and his wife to make them disobey the Divine command of the Lord God; both desired immortality or to become angels; Satan urged them to disobey the Lord God; they wanted to discover themselves (and their bodies created of dust) to get to know the truth and they never wanted to disbelieve in the Lord God; thus, temptation/disobedience here is not linked to telling lies. For instance, I might tell someone that there are jewels in a huge box and I'd tempt him to open it; this box of jewels might contain deadly vipers along with the jewels which will bite him and their venom will kill him; in this case, I tempted this person to open the box to get the jewels without telling lies. You see my point, I hope ... Besides, Satan or Iblis said the following to the Lord God: "..."Because you have tempted me, I will twist to them Your Straight Path." (7:16). What does Satan mean by the term (tempted) here? Anyway, this means that Iblis or Satan did not deny God's existence; this is shown here when Satan said the following: "..."By Your majesty, I will seduce them all. Except for Your loyal servants among them." (38:82-83) ... The arrogant Satan or Iblis did not swear in vain and he was truthful; his weapon is temptation and not telling lies; the Quran never describes Iblis as untruthful or as a liar: "... but Satan promises them nothing but delusions." (4:120); these delusions are temptations to commit sins and to disobey God ... Another question is that how Iblis or Satan entered into the Paradise of Adam and his wife since he was expelled from the Upper Realm after he refused to prostrate to Adam like the rest of the angels? ...I'm sorry for having to write such a long message; thank you, Sir, for your time and for your great writings and great books ...).
OUR REPLY:
Firstly:
We thank you for sending your very good question; it indicates a very good mentality; we would like you to join our website as a reader, a commentator, and a writer of articles, provided that you adhere to the conditions of our website: (1) never to ascribe hadiths to Muhammad, and (2) never to deny Quranic facts of Islam; e.g., the five daily prayers and the testimony of (There is no God but Allah).
Secondly: about Iblis:
1- We did not write that "Iblis" is a liar or telling lies; we mean this about "Satan"; Iblis was his name when he was among the arch-angels of the Upper Realm; after his expulsion, he has become Satan the Devil, among the evil jinn; this means he can no longer ascend into the Barsakh levels of the heavens; he exists in the earthly Barsakh levels like all jinn; thus, he can enter the Barsakh Paradise of Adam and his wife which exists within the Barsakh levels of the earth; because of his success in tempting Adam and his wife to disobey the Lord God, both Adam and his wife descended on the physical earth to live on its surface.
2- Iblis, arrogantly and out of pride, refused to obey the Lord God's command of prostrating to Adam; he claimed falsely, because he is a liar, that God has tempted him (see 7:16); God never tempted Iblis or anyone else; God has commanded all the angels to prostrate to Adam; Iblis was among these angels; all of them obeyed the Divine command except him; he envied and hated Adam; Iblis linked his arrogant and adamant refusal to a false justification of God luring or tempting him; this is a false accusation against the Lord God.
3- The Lord God says the following in the Quran: "And We said to the angels, "Bow down to Adam." They bowed down, except for Iblis. He refused, was arrogant, and was one of the disbelievers." (2:34); the verb (was) in Arabic here means (became); thus, Iblis the angel became among the disbelieving jinn: "We said to the angels, "Bow down to Adam." So they bowed down, except for Iblis. He was of the jinn, and he defied the command of his Lord. Will you take him and his offspring as allies instead of Me, when they are an enemy to you? Evil is the exchange for the unjust ones." (18:50). The verb (was) means (became) also in other Quranic contexts; e.g., "...But whoever among you was sick, or on a journey, then a number of other days..." (2:184); "...Whoever of you was sick, or has an injury of the head, then redemption of fasting, or charity, or worship..." (2:196).
4- Iblis never denied God's existence; he became a disbeliever; i.e., a polytheist who deifies others besides God; when Iblis has disobeyed God out of pride and arrogance, he thus became a worshiper of his whim and desire; he has deified himself and considered himself as an equal to God; this is his polytheism/disbelief and he became Satan the Devil among the jinn and he was no longer an angel. This is why on the Last Day, God will tell followers of Satan (who will be inside Hell) that they have worshiped Satan the Devil: "Did I not covenant with you, O children of Adam, that you shall not worship Satan? That he is your sworn enemy? And that you shall worship Me? This is a Straight Path. He has misled a great multitude of you. Did you not understand? This is Hellfire, which you were promised. Roast in it today, because you persistently disbelieved." (36:60-64); this means that as per the Quran, the vast majority of human beings, in all eras, are disbelievers/polytheists who will enter into Hell. There are no human beings who can deny God's existence (http://www.ahl-alquran.com/English/show_article.php?main_id=17341); disbelievers/polytheists are those who follow their whims and desires and disobey God; they make their sins, whims, and desires as part of their religion and acts of worship; this is what Satan the Devil does when he tempts human beings; he makes them follow their whims and desires and make their sinful deeds as part of an earthly/terrestrial religions ascribed falsely to the Lord God as if they were part of His Celestial/Divine Religion. We refer you to many subtitled-into-English episodes within our YouTube show titled "Quranic Moments" about the fact that disbelievers/polytheists believe in God but also in false deities/gods besides the Lord God; this grave sin is committed by the Muhammadans who deify mortals (prophets and non-prophets); we sincerely hope you will watch these episodes.
Thirdly: about Satan:
1- We did not write that "Satan" is a liar or telling lies; we have mentioned that (Satan's religions are mere lies) and this is in contrast to the fact that God's Celestial Religion is the Religion of the Truth. Our phrase (Satan's religions are mere lies) is true because Satan inspires his human allies to fabricate and invent hadiths/narratives/tales/myths and to ascribe them falsely to God and to Muhammad as part of religion, and such fabrications and lies are derived from Satan the Devil who is the imam/leader of liars and fabricators who ascribe lies and falsehoods to God's religion; it is the gravest sin to ascribe lies to God and to His Religion.
2- Satan's devilish revelations/religions are based on inventions/fabrications ascribed falsely to God; this is the case of the Sunnite, Shiite, and Sufi religions, of course. The Lord God says the following about Satan's progeny of devils: "Likewise, We have assigned for every prophet an enemy - human and jinn devils - inspiring one another with fancy words in order to deceive. But had your Lord willed, they would not have done it. So leave them to their fabrications. So that the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter may incline to it, and be content with it, and that they may perpetrate whatever they perpetrate." (6:112-113); devils inspire their human allies to argue with believers against the Truth: "...The devils inspire their followers to argue with you; but if you obey them, you would be polytheists." (6:121). Thus, followers of Satan fashion their lies and fabrications and invent many narratives of falsehood; they and those who believe in such lies are the most unjust ones who wrong God: "Who commits graver injustice than someone who fabricates lies about God, or denies His Verses? The criminals will never prosper." (10:17); this meaning is repeated in the Quranic Chapters 6 and 7, among other Quranic Chapters.
3- Satan the Devil convinces his followers to sanctify and deify things/items such as tombs/mausoleums: " O you who believe! Wine, gambling, mausoleums, and divination are abominations of Satan's doing. Avoid them, so that you may prosper." (5:90).
4- Satan the Devil controls and veils/screens the minds of disbelievers; the human mind normally cannot accept to worship or deify things/items or the mortals who turned to dust; the mission of Satan is to neutralize the human mind so that people would accept myths refused by the reasoning mind while assuming they are guided as such myths are ascribed to the Lord God and to His Religion; this is why the human allies of Satan assume falsely that they are guided: "...They have adopted the devils for allies rather than God, and they assume that they are guided." (7:30). The Lord God says the following about this deceit of Satan the Devil who controls the minds of his human allies: ""Those whose efforts in this world are misguided, while they assume that they are doing well."" (18:104). The minds/souls of those who are blind towards the Quranic Light and turn a deaf ear to its verses are controlled by devils who make them see guidance as misguidance and misguidance as guidance: "Whoever shuns the remembrance of the Dominant Lord, We assign for him a devil, to be his companion. They hinder them from the path, though they think they are guided." (43:36-37).
5- The cunning of Satan includes his linking misguidance to vain wishes; e.g., the belief in the so-called intercession that allow disobedient sinners to go on sinning while assuming wrongly they will enter into Paradise anyway; such sinners/polytheists never realize they are misguided who need guidance through the Quran. Iblis says the following about his tempting human beings: "And I will mislead them, and I will entice them..." (4:119); he tells his followers nothing but lies/myths and untrue promises: "He promises them, and he raises their expectations, but Satan promises them nothing but delusions." (4:120). This is why fabrications, lies, myths, and falsehoods spread among the Muhammadans and others who follow Satan's misguidance.
6- Satan the Devil will disown both his followers and his untrue promises: "And Satan will say, when the issue is settled, "God has promised you the promise of truth, and I promised you, but I failed you. I had no authority over you, except that I called you, and you answered me. So do not blame me, but blame yourselves. I cannot come to your aid, nor can you come to my aid. I reject your associating with me in the past. The unjust ones will have a most painful torment."" (14:22); this is why the Lord God warns the progeny of Adam against Satan here: "Satan is an enemy to you, so treat him as an enemy. He only invites his gang to be among the inmates of Hell." (35:6).
Fourthly: the moral lesson drawn from the Quranic story of Adam and Iblis:
1- This story is repeated in the Quranic Chapters 2, 7, 15, 20, and 38, among other Quranic Chapters. We draw from this Quranic story the moral lesson concerning the topic of (dis)obedience; we, human beings, have only three options as follows.
1/1: To readily obey the Divine commands even if we do not understand them, as is the case with angels (except Iblis) who prostrated to Adam as per God's command without asking for the reason behind this command.
1/2: To readily disobey the Divine commands and to justify such disobedience in the same way as Iblis who arrogantly and defiantly disobeyed God's command while citing reasons for such disobedience while assuming he is 'right' and he proudly deified himself as he followed his whim and desire.
1/3: To commit the sin of disobeying the Lord God and then to repent and regret it, as is the case with Adam and his wife; both eat from the fruits of the forbidden tree; when they sinned, they never justified their sin and never made it part of religion; both readily repented and implored God to forgive and pardon them.
2- Within applying the above points on human beings, we notice the following points.
2/1: There are those who obey God's Quranic commands without asking for reasons behind these commands; e.g., they never consume wine and flesh of the swines/pigs to obey the Lord God's Quranic command without asking for the reason behind these Quranic legislations; they fast during Ramadan without demanding to know the reason behind this; if they continue this submission to God within monotheism and piety, they will be among the Forerunners in Paradise who are nearer to the Lord God.
2/2: There are those who disobey and commit small and/or grave sins but readily repent; they adhere to repentance and making amends for the rest of their lives and they shun/avoid sinning – these are the pious ones who will be among those on the Right in Paradise. The Lord God says the following about the description of the pious ones: "And race towards forgiveness from your Lord, and a Garden as wide as the heavens and the earth, prepared for the righteous. Those who give in prosperity and adversity, and those who restrain anger, and those who forgive people. God loves the doers of good. And those who, when they commit an indecency or wrong themselves, remember God and ask forgiveness for their sins - and who forgives sins except God? And they do not persist in their wrongdoing while they know. Those - their reward is forgiveness from their Lord, and gardens beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein forever. How excellent is the reward of the workers." (3:133-136).
2/3: There are those who disobey and commit grave sins while justifying their crimes and bad deeds and making them as part of religion; these sinners cannot repent as they are the allies of Satan and they follow his footsteps of justifying disobedience.
Lastly: the phrase (God is the Greatest!), or Allahu Akbar! in Arabic, is the decisive proof of the misguidance of the Muhammadans:
1- A female friend of ours is an Egyptian-American woman; she has given birth to her daughter inside the USA; this daughter is now 30 years old; when she visited Cairo, Egypt, for the first time with her mother, she heard the call of the dawn prayers from a nearby mosque; once she heard the phrase (God is the Greatest!), or Allahu Akbar! in Arabic, she panicked and jumped out of bed while screaming; she assumed that a terrorist crime has been committed; this is because the phrase (God is the Greatest!) is associated inside her mind with terrorism and Wahabi terrorists; we cannot blame her!
2- When the pious believers utter the phrase (God is the Greatest!) during their prayers, they attain more piety; this phrase means that the Dominant, Almighty Lord God is above everything and everyone; they focus and concentrate during their prayers and never thing of earthly things or worldly affairs. Those pious believers are monotheists who apply the phrase (God is the Greatest!) by never making any human creatures (e.g., Muhammad) as gods/deities who are partners sharing sovereignty of the Lord God the Creator of the heavens and the earth (i.e., the universe) and they never mention the names of mortals during the call of prayers: (God is the Greatest! There is no God but Allah!), performing prayers, pilgrimage, and the testimony of monotheism: (There is no God but Allah). Those pious believers are monotheists who mean what they utter during the daily prayers, such as this verse: "It is You we worship, and upon You we call for help." (1:5); this is what Muhammad used to utter during prayers; he and real monotheists never worship anyone/anything besides Allah and never sought help except from Him; this is the real application of the phrase (God is the Greatest!).
3- Ordinary or peaceful disbelievers/polytheists never believe in the phrase (God is the Greatest!), because for them, mortals (e.g., Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha) are above the Lord God Allah.
4- Disbelieving, polytheistic criminals among the Sunnite Wahabis scream the phrase (God is the Greatest!) while they massacre the innocent ones or scream it to encourage and hail terrorist heinous crimes. We remember that once we have been invited into a conference in 1987 in Cairo, Egypt, and it was a conspiracy that aimed at the assassination of our person; once we began to deliver our speech, a bearded Wahabi youth stood and screamed the phrase (God is the Greatest!) and this ushered the attack on our person by Wahabi terrorists who carried staffs and knives – but the Almighty Lord God has saved our person.