Iblis

“ When Iblis saw that God had appointed him a protracted term, [10] he hastened to wage war upon man and to beset him with wiles, to the intent that he might oust him from his Lord’s favour and make him a partaker with himself in the curse which he and his hosts had incurred; wherefore God (extolled be His praises!) appointed unto man the power of repentance and commanded him to apply himself to the truth and persevere therein. ”

“ To unite the soul with the body is as much as to drive Adam from heaven; to long for the body is to bear the commands of Eva; and to perform bad actions is to eat of the forbidden tree; anger is the serpent; lust is the peacock. They hold that Iblis represents the power of imagination which guides us, and the sensual influence which denies the knowledge of words and things consentient with reason, and contends with the power of reason ”

“ So Iblis the Damned drank and said, "Brava, O desire of hearts! But thou owest me still another aria." Then he filled the cup and signed to her to sing. Quoth she, "Hearkening and obedience," and chanted these couplets,
"Ye wot, I am whelmed in despair and despight, * Ye dight me blight that delights your sight: Your wone is between my unrest and my eyes; * Nor tears to melt you, nor sighs have might. How oft shall I sue you for justice, and you * With a pining death my dear love requite? But your harshness is duty, your farness near ”

“ As to what is said, that God commanded Iblis to adore Adam, and that, because he disobeyed, Iblis was expelled from the celestial court [8] —this tale is impious; because God does not command prostration before another object, nor induce any body to undue worship, as he did not create Iblis for the purpose of throwing men into error. In the second 9 Fárúk, it is stated that Iblis does not exist; the Almighty God gave man free choice, and the faculty of acting well or ill: wherefore he takes account of his good and bad conduct. ”

“ When at last God showed him the beauty of women,
Which bereaves men of reason and self-control,
Then Iblis clapped his hands and began to dance,
Saying, "Give me these; I shall quickly prevail with these!" [7]
"LOVERS AND BELOVED HAVE BOTH PERISHED"
Lovers and beloved have both perished;
And not themselves only, but their love as well.
'Tis God alone who agitates these nonentities,
Making one nonentity fall in love with another.
In the heart that is no heart envy comes to a head,
Thus Being troubles nonentity. [8]
"O ANGELS, BRING HIM BACK TO ME"
"O angels, bring him back to me. ”

“ He is chief of the spirits of evil, and his personality is adapted to that of his Jewish prototype. Iblis rebelled against Allah and was expelled from Paradise. The Koranic legend is that his fall was a punishment for his refusal to worship Adam. ”

“ A mussulman legend says that when, after the Fall of Man, Allah was mitigating the sentences he had pronounced, Iblis (who, as the Koran relates, pleaded and obtained the deferment of his consignment to Hell until the resurrection, and unlimited power over sinners who do not accept the word of Allah) asked—
‘Where shall I dwell in the meantime?
‘In ruins, tombs, and all other unclean places shunned by man. ”

“ What spurred them on even better were the suggestions of Iblis (Satan) who, lurking in the recesses of their souls, filled the Unbelievers with dreams of victory and vengeance, although ready to desert his victims shamelessly in case Allah should exert His Might in favour of their adversaries.
"The Evil One had already bewitched them by exaggerated praise of their actions; and furthermore had said: 'No man shall conquer you this day; and verily I will be near to help you.'" (The Qur'an, viii, 50)
The Prophet had no idea of his enemies' preparations. ”

“ Iblis, and I come to thee every night, and with me thy sister Kemeriyeh, for that she loveth thee and sweareth not but by thy life; and her life is not pleasant to her, except she come to thee and see thee, what while thou seest her not. As for me, I come to thee upon an affair, wherein thou shall find thine advantage and whereby thou shalt rise to high rank with the kings of the Jinn and rule them, even as thou rulest mankind ”

“ The sons of the Khazraj and Aus have sworn to fall upon you with the sword!'
"We shuddered, but the Prophet removed our fears by saying: 'That is the voice of the demon of the Aqabah which means that Iblis (Satan) is shrieking. He is Allah's enemy, and his cry has not been heard by any of our adversaries.' We returned to our tents, where we found our fellow-citizens sleeping soundly, suspecting naught of that which had taken place. ”

“ The chief of the demons, Iblis, bears some resemblance to the Jewish Satan and the Christian Devil. The account of the creation and fall of man is taken, with variations, from the Old Testament. The description of the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the division of the future world into paradise and hell, the former for believers in Islam, the latter for those who have refused to accept it, seems to have been based on Persian and Jewish ideas. These borrowings from other religions facilitated the spread of Islam among eastern peoples. ”

“ How cometh it thou art pleased to send for me and show me to strange men?" "O Sitt al-Husn," said he, "no man is here save this little foot-page and the Eunuch who reared thee and I, thy father. From whom, then, dost thou veil thy face?" She answered, "This whom thou deemest an ape is a young man, a clever and polite, a wise and learned and the son of a King; but he is ensorcelled and the Ifrit Jirjaris, who is of the seed of Iblis, cast a spell upon him, after putting to death his own wife the daughter of King Ifitamus lord of the Islands of Abnus." ”

“ Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in gay fine colours that are but skin-deep, and seems to come from above; for Satan can seem an angel of light. And, (2.) Because it is a subtle creature; that is here taken notice of. Many instances are given of the subtlety of the serpent, both to do mischief, and to secure himself in it when it is done. We are bid to be wise as serpents. But this serpent, as actuated by the Devil, no doubt, was more subtle than any other; for the Devil, though he had lost the sanctity, retains the sagacity, of an angel, and is wise to do evil. ”

“ There are a number of other names by which the Devil is called in Scripture, each of which expresses something of the essential nature of hell; such as, Angel of the bottomless pit, Prince of this world, Prince of darkness, Destroyer, Beelzebub, Belial, Adversary, Accuser, Deceiver, Liar, Murderer, Tormentor, Serpent, Lucifer, Leviathan and Dragon. Such are the significant names which we find in the Bible sometimes applied to the collective body of evil spirits in the other world, who, viewed as one individual, are more frequently called the Devil and Satan. ”

“ He knew he could not destroy man but by debauching him. Balaam could not curse Israel, but he could tempt Israel, Rev. ii. 14. The game therefore which Satan had to play was to draw our first parents to sin, and so to separate between them and their God. Thus the devil was, from the beginning, a murderer, and the great mischief-maker. The whole race of mankind had here, as it were, but one neck, and at that Satan struck. The adversary and enemy is that wicked one. 2. It was the devil in the likeness of a serpent. ”

“ No atonement would have been made, and the whole world would have gone to hell. The success of the Devil would have been complete. But, according to this story, the Devil outwitted himself.
How thankful we should be to his Satanic Majesty. He opened for us the gates of Paradise and made it possible for us to obtain eternal life. Without Satan, without Judas, not a single human being could have become an angel of light. All would have been wingless devils in the prison of flame. In Jerusalem, to the extent of his power, Satan repaired the wreck and ruin he had wrought in the Garden of Eden. ”

“ Satan, by the divine permission, follows his blow, and now deep calls unto deep.
1. The disease was very grievous with which Job was seized; Satan smote him with boils, sore boils, all over him, from head to foot; with an evil inflammation, so some render it; an erysipelas, perhaps, in a higher degree. One boil, when it is gathering, is torment enough, and gives a man abundance of pain and uneasiness. What a condition was Job then in, that had boils all over him, and no part free, and those of as raging a heat as the Devil could make them, and, as it were, set on fire of hell! ”

“ If we now attempt to frame a history of the modern Hell, its rulers, its angels, or its devils, we find, in the first place, that the Old Testament contains no idea whatever of Satan being an angel originally bright and fair, but subsequently disobedient, rebellious, conquered, and punished. Nor is the New Testament much more communicative—we find the arch-fiend described as a murderer and as a liar; he also is associated with angels, as in the words, "the Devil and his angels." ”

“ Note, The Devil is the tempter, and therefore he is Satan—an adversary; for those are our worst enemies, that entice us to sin, and are Satan's agents, are doing his work, and carrying on his designs. He is called emphatically the tempter, because he was so to our first parents, and still is so, and all other tempters are set on work by him. The tempter came to Christ in a visible appearance, not terrible and affrighting, as afterward in his agony in the garden; no, if ever the Devil transformed himself into an angel of light, he did so now, and pretended to be a good genius, a guardian angel. ”

“ The pains of hell have gotten hold of him. Hark how the devil is tearing him. He is like to the man with the unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs. The devil is gotten into him. But out wi' thee, Satan, and no more two words about it! ”

“ If the Old Testament is true, the Devil does exist, and it is impossible to explain him away without at the same time explaining God away.
So there are many references to devils, and spirits of divination and of evil which I have not the time to call attention to; but, in the Book of Job, Satan, the Devil has a conversation with God. It is this Devil that brings the sorrows and losses on the upright man. It is this Devil that raises the storm that wrecks the homes of Job's children. It is this Devil that kills the children of Job. ”

“ I confess that I could, if satisfactory evidence were given, credit the occurrence of a devil with a tail—of a centaur with a horse's body and a human head—but I could not possibly believe that Satan went about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he could devour in the dress of a bull with bat-like wings, as well as horns and hoofs; or that an angel of God approaches us in a form nearer to the scarabseus of Egypt than to the human form divine. ”

“ Among the works of sin are the numerous diseases which transgression has brought upon the world. The Hebrews, the idiom of whose language is derived from the Mosaic narrative of the origin of things, referred disease to sin under the names of the devil and Satan. Hence, they inquired, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" A woman "bowed together with a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years", is said to have been "bound of Satan", or the adversary, for that time ”

“ To the same place or kingdom pertaining to this earth. They do not go to the depths of hell, neither can they until they become angels of devils.
Is a Saint subject to the power of the Devil in the spirit world? No, because he has gained the victory through faith, and can command Satan, and he must obey. How is it with the wicked? The Devil has power over them to distress and afflict them: they are in hell. ”

“ But save in some highly specialized context when the most meticulous accuracy is required, we now use the words “devil,” “demon” indifferently, and employ the definite article to denote Lucifer (Satan) , chief of the devils, The Devil. So in S. Matthew xxv. 41, is written “the devil and his angels.” The Greek word διάβολος means a slanderer, an accuser, and in this sense is it applied to him of whom it is said “the accuser [ὁ κατήγορος] of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night” (Apocalypse xii. 10) . ”

“ Those who believe the Scriptures are compelled to say that this Devil was created by God, and that God knew when he created him just what he would do—the exact measure of his success; knew that he would be a successful rival; knew that he would deceive and corrupt the children of men; knew that, by reason of this Devil, countless millions of human beings would suffer eternal torment in the prison of pain. And this God also knew when he created the Devil, that he, God, would be compelled to leave his throne, to be bom a babe in Palestine, and to suffer a cruel death. ”

“ We see, then, that, according to the New doctrine, no single individual as chief of the fallen angels, is meant by these Scripture terms, but all evil spirits in the complex,—or some one of the infernal societies with whose every act and purpose the whole conspires. Devil is the term employed when hell is spoken of with more especial reference to the evil loves that reign there: and Satan, when it is spoken of with more especial reference to its false persuasions. ”

“ All the fathers of the church believed in devils. All the saints won their crowns by overcoming devils. All the popes and cardinals, bishops and priests, believed in devils. Most of their time was occupied in fighting devils. The whole Catholic world, from the lowest layman to the highest priest, believed in devils. They proved the existence of devils by the New Testament. They knew that these devils were citizens of hell. They knew that Satan was their king. They knew that hell was made for the Devil and his angels. ”