Satan As I Understand
Liaquat Ali
4/2/2002
The "Qur'an As It Explains Itself" Project
http://www.qaiu.org

One of the names of the Qur’an is, “Al Mutashabah” or “the Allegoric”.

QAIU 3:7. The Book He has sent down bears an important principle. In it, some verses are Literal, and the other verses are Allegorical. The verses that pertain to Laws, Ordnances, Commandments and Permanent Values have been presented literally. These verses are the Essence of the Divine Law. On the other hand, abstract facts, historical events, and the world of the unseen are described in similes, metaphors and allegories for your understanding. Trying to give literal meaning to the allegories is a great folly. As human knowledge evolves, many of these allegorical verses will unfold their literal meaning.

The allegories of Adam, Satan, angels, fire, clay have been repeated numerous times. The Tasreef, or the process of going back and forth within the Qur’an to understand the Qur’anic concepts, reveals the following:

Free will The ability to choose in thought, word and action. The human “free will” is fashioned after God’s Unlimited Free Will.

Adam The first Homo sapien God gave the “free will” to.

Self The transcendent element of Adam that moves on to the next life.

Satan The selfish, uncontrollable desire.

Fire Fiery temperament, wild, uncivilized, uncontrollable emotions.

Clay Humble, down-to-earth, humility.

Human Civilized children of Adam.

Jinn Sub-human, uncivilized children of Adam. Commonly misunderstood as a separate creation made of fire.

Angels Forces of nature.

God does talk about the existence of angels before the “creation” of Adam. However, He does not talk about Satan, before Adam’s “creation”. Therefore, it can be deducted that the existence of Satan or “selfish desire” was irrelevant before assigning the free will to a Homo sapien.

Ignoring this fact has led many to assume that Satan was one of jinns, and he chose to rebel against God’s plan. This line of thinking, in my humble opinion, is influence by Zoroastrism and other religions. Qur’an is not interested in creating yet another religion. It talks about real issues and their solutions; plain and simple.

Satan tells Allah that He created him this way. He is not blaming Him, he is merely stating a fact. That is, Allah's Law does not allow uncontrollable desire (fire) to unconditionally bow to Humbleness (clay). Keep in mind, angels, the forces of nature, bowed to Adam unconditionally.

Humans, with their God-given “free will”, can live their lives according to their nature, that is civility and humbleness, or allow incivility to creep inside their "selves". Nomads are therefore called "jins" because they manifest incivility. Not necessarily by succumbing to "selfish desire", or by not having the “free will” at all, but because they have not reached the level of exercising their “free will” yet. It is important to note that first giving “free will”, and then limiting humans to the qualities of "clay" would be moot. Note: Various contexts of the use of the word "jinn" is not very clear in my head yet. I will continue to try to improve my understanding here.

The existence of “selfish desire” or Satan is part of God’s plan to prepare “self” for the next level of evolution after death. Maybe like the sergeant in Army who drills to-be commissioned officers. Most everyone hates him, but he is the part of the Army plan. Whoever drops out because he hates the sergeant, because of his toughness, loses out. After passing out, the commissioned officers get rid of the sergeant. He actually starts saluting them. Satan, the selfish desire, can only be tamed, but cannot be eliminated. That is, it will never salute the human.

The more human uses “free will” to ward off incivility, the more the "self" develops. That’s the way “self” is made. Nothing we can do about it. That's why many mystics have gone overboard in the area of "tazkia". They erroneously think of “tazkia” as the repression of "self". However, it is exercise of the “free will”, to keep the incivility out of the "self", is what is called for. In other words, it is the mastery of the use of the “free will” to keep the “selfish desire” out that leads to the development of "self".

Where does the Qur'an fit in? It is the component of the human knowledgebase that cannot be learnt by contemplation and experimentation. It gives you all the information necessary to be confident that the constant exercise of the "free will" is indeed part of the discipline, and that when enough people are working, in concert, the world will change for the better. A world, where you will have easier time exercising "free will" to ward off the "selfish desire". In a Divine Order the exercise of the “free well” to develop “self” would be a collective effort, rather than an individual effort.

Now, what to make of “iman bil ghaib” or “faith on unseen”? In my humble understanding, Allah never wanted us to get bogged down with magic-o-mystical events and creations in the name of “iman bil ghaib”. According to modern research, visual learning is a powerful method of teaching and learning that utilizes graphical ways of working with ideas and presenting information. Visual learning helps students:

- Make abstract ideas visible and concrete

- Connect prior knowledge and new concepts

- Provide structure for thinking, writing, discussing, planning and reporting

- Focus thoughts and ideas that lead to understanding and interpretation

Since the Creator knew how the human mind works, and since a large number of people are more apt for visual learning, He used allegories to convey the Message of the Qur’an to 7^th Century humans.

The Qur'an gives enough evidence and tools so that you can have faith that:

- The Message of the Qur’an is indeed from the Creator of the universes,

- Whatever Allah is asking us to do is for our own good,

- Controlling “selfish desire” is the pre-requisite to prepare the “self” for the next level of evolution,

- Compassion is a way to the exponential growth of “self”,

- The “self” is indeed moving on to the next level of evolution,

- When enough “selves” have prepared themselves for the next level of evolution, which starts after death, the mere presence of such exponentially developed “selves” will make this world a reflection of the life of Paradise.