Beginning of Sin

Worshipping Allah is to obey His Commands and disobeying His Commands is sin and vice, and is surely the way to disbelief, Allah forbid. Hence, worship is the obedience of the creature to the Commands of his Creator. Satan disobeyed the Command of Allah so there is no longer worship, but sin and disbelief.

Allah, all praise and glory is to Him, relates in the Noble Qur’an the beginning of Satan’s rebellion, saying what means:
“And [mention] when We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate before Adam’; so they prostrated, except for Iblees (Satan). He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers.” (Surah Al-Baqarah, 2: 34)

That was the beginning of sin; the beginning of Satan’s denial and infidelity was his rejection of the Command of Allah, all praise and glory is to Him, by refusing to prostrate himself to Adam. Indeed, Satan did not refuse to prostrate to other than Allah, but he refused to prostrate himself to the Command of Allah and that is the difference. For truly the rejection of any Command of Allah is sin and infidelity.

But still some people claim that the Command here was given to the angels and not to Satan, so how does Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, hold Adam accountable for a Command not given to him?

We answer by saying that though Satan was from the jinn he also refused to obey the Command. Concerning that Allah, all praise and glory is to Him, says what means:
“And they prostrated, except for Iblees (Satan). He was of the jinn and departed from the command of his Lord.” (Surah Al-Kahf, 18: 50)

Also the Ayah in which Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, addresses Satan saying what means:
“[Allah] said, ‘What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?’ [Satan] said, ‘I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay.’” (Surah Al-A‘raf, 7: 12)

And His Saying:
“[Allah] said, ‘O Iblees, what prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with My hands? Were you arrogant [then], or were you [already] among the haughty?’” (Surah Sad, 38: 75)

Therefore, we can clearly see on the strength of the Qur’anic passages that the Command of prostration was given to Satan too, and that the Command definitely included him.