Satan and the Jinn

Satan, which Allah mentions to us many times in the Quran, is from the world of the jinn. He used to worship Allah at the beginning of his creation. He lived among the angels in the heavens. He entered Paradise. But then he disobeyed Allah when he refused to prostrate to Adam, out of pride, arrogance and envy. Therefore Allah cast him out of from His mercy.

Satan, in the Arabic language, is a general term for any arrogant rebel. It is used, in general, for that one specific being because he was so arrogant and rebelled against his Lord.

He is called taaghoot[1] in Surah Al-Nisaa, verse 76.

“Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah; and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of taaghoot. So fight the minions of the devil. Lo, the devil’s strategy is weak.”

Taaghoot is a word that is well-known to many of the people of the earth, with exactly the same lettering, according to al-Aqaad in his book He is called a taaghoot because he has transgressed the limits, rebelled against his Lord and tried to set himself up as a god to be worshipped.

Satan has despaired of any chance of mercy from Allah and for that reason Allah has named him Iblees (Alabalas) means he has no good in him. And (Ublis) means despaired and lost.

Many of the early scholars have mentioned that his name before he disobeyed his Lord was azaazeel.  Allah knows best how correct that is.

Satan, the created

The one who studies the Quran and in the hadith knows that Satan is one of Allah’s creations and he has a mind, ability to understand, he moves and so forth... He is not what some of the ignorant have claimed, “an evil spirit that takes the shape of the evil conscience animalistic part of man, who leads the person when it takes the place of the spiritual, good conscious in the heart.”’[2]

His origin

We have already stated that Satan is a jinn. Some modern and past writers have disputed this point. They use as a proof the statement of Allah,

“And when We said unto the angels: Prostrate yourselves before Adam, they fell prostrate, all save Iblees. He demurred through pride, and so became an unbeliever” (Surah Al-Baqarah: 34). [They also quote] other similar verses in which Allah makes an exception from the angels of Iblees. And they argue that if he is being excepted from a group, it must have been that he was a member of that group as this is the customary mode of speech.

In many of the books of commentaries and books of history we find narrations from many scholars on this point. They mention that Satan was among the angels and that he was the treasurer of paradise or of the lowest heaven. He was the most noble and honorable of the angels and so forth. Ibn Katheer states in his commentary of the Quran,

These stories have been related from many of the early scholars. Most of them are from Jewish and Christian legends (Ar-Zsraaeeliyaat) which must be investigated more closely. Allah alone knows the truth of most of these types of reports. Many of them are clearly false since they contradict the truth that we possess in our hands [that is, the Quran and the hadith of the Prophet]. Whatever the Quran contains is sufficient and we need not delve into the stories of the earlier peoples. Their reports have not been safe from changes, additions and deletions. They have fabricated many things in their reports. They did not have among them those trustworthy people who safeguarded their scriptures and reports from being contaminated by the extremists and others as this nation (of Islam) has had. This nation has had scholars, experts, leaders, memorizers, preservers and pious people who recorded the hadith and scrutinized them, making clear which of them are authentic, acceptable, weak, rejected, fabricated, false. They were familiar with who the forgers were and who were the unknown narrators who should not be considered fully trustworthy. All of that is due to the position of the Prophet Muhammad and the fact that he is the seal of all the Prophets and leader of mankind. Therefore forgeries and interpolations have not been able to be attributed to him and to be accepted by the scholars.

Concerning their proof that Allah excepted Iblees from the angels, it is not a definitive proof. Such statements may be disjunctive.[3] In fact, this is definitely the case as Allah states that Iblees was one of the jinn. Allah says in the Quran,

“And remember when we said unto the angels: Fall prostrate before Adam, and they fell prostrate, all save Iblees. He was of the Jinn, so he rebelled against his Lord’s command.” (Surah Al-Kahf: 20). Furthermore, it has also been confirmed from an authentic text that the jinn are not the same as the angels or as the humans. The Prophet said, “The angels have been created from light, the jinn from fire and Adam was created from clay.” (This was recorded in Sahih Muslim)[4].

Al-Hasan al-Basri said, Iblees was not from the angels even for the blinking of an eye.” [5]Ibn Taimiya said, Verily, Satan was from the angels with respect to his appearance, but not with respect to his origin, and not with respect to him being of the same nature as them.”[6]

Was Satan the origin of the Jinn or was he just one of them?

We do not possess any clear text that states Satan to have been the origin of all the jinn or that states that he was simply one of them. The latter is more apparent from the statement,

“Except Iblees and he was of the jinn.” (Surah Al-Kahf: 50). Ibn Taimiya is of the opinion that Satan was the origin of all the jinn in the same way that Adam is the origin of all mankind[7].