whoreofabaddon:

             

 “Satan was ordered to bow down to Adam. He replied: O Lord! If You forgive me for not prostrating to him, I would worship You the kind of worship that no one else could match.”  — Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq

The Sufi portrayal of Satan is a remarkably tragic one, which makes the agony of the fallen angel’s separation from the host of Heaven appear even greater and more obvious to mankind. It is illustrated even by His very name in the faith as ʾIblīsis derived from the Arabic word ‘balasa’ (بَلَسَ) which translates as ‘he despaired.’ It is a suiting name because the entire story of ʾIblīs is based on despair; one which is caused not just by His pride but also by His unwavering love of Yahweh and His nature of overstressed obedience to Heavenly Law.  If the Judeo-Christian Satan’s sin against Yahweh was pride, the Sufi Shaytan’s sin was that He loved Yahweh too much.

As in other stories, ʾIblīs was the most magnificent and beloved creation of Yahweh, before His fall. He was created from smokeless fire and a marvelous being to behold, so brilliant and close to Yahweh that some legends even tell that He was the teacher of all of the angels. Who better to teach the angels than one who knew Yahweh’s will so intimately? ʾIblīs was so bright and fantastic that Yahweh gave Him a gift that none had yet to experience. Shaytan was the first being to have free-will.  So, when Yahweh gathered all the angels on Eden to show them his new creation – man – ʾIblīs was met with an obstacle. Yahweh had ordered the angels to bow to Adam and prostrate themselves against the earth to humanity as they did to Yahweh himself.   

Adam was a flawed creature, freshly made from clay, and like everything else made from earth he was rife with imperfections. He was not even as beautiful as the angels, not as wise or loving, and certainly not as much of an extension of Yahweh’s grace and perfection. Yahweh was asking his most perfect creation to cast Himself to the ground in an act of worship for a creature that was not even fitting of nearness to Yahweh’s spirit. Adam did not deserve Yahweh’s mercy alone, and certainly not the love he was being shown by their father. It was a request that took glory away from His father and gave it to something horrible, while conflicting with Yahweh’s eternal will that none would be worshiped but him.  

So ʾIblīs refused to bow down to the creation, because He believed that to do an act of worship to Adam would be sacrilegious. How could He be asked to show love and devotion to anyone but His father? How could He bear to even imagine showing love to another? Due to this, Mansur al-Hallaj, a teacher of Sufism recognized only two true believers of monotheism in the world. Muhammad and Shaytan.  ʾIblīs could not force Himself to prostrate to Adam, because to do so was an act against His father’s truest wish. The other angels all bowed down to humanity, but ʾIblīs could not. He pleaded; “Not before another but Thou! My rebellion means to declare Thee Holy! What is Adam! He is nothing without Thou.”

Yet, despite ʾIblīs’ devotion, He was damned for His disobedience; Yahweh did not want to be obeyed only when his angels saw fit. In His obedience to legalism and His faith in tawhid Iblīs was actively disobeying Yahweh himself. He had become more faithful to Yahweh’s laws than even Yahweh was. Certain versions of the story go so far as to imply that Yahweh would have killed ʾIblīs on the spot, but his most beautiful angel again swore His love and devotion and begged to be given a reprieve.  Shaytan promised that He was capable of proving that humankind was not worthy of His father’s grace, and that they were inherently sinful creatures ungrateful for Yahweh’s mercy.

Perhaps, it was because he saw the agony in the eyes of his once beloved ʾIblīs or because the newly dubbed Shaytan’s words were so sublime, but for whatever reason Yahweh relented. Shaytan would be granted reprieve until The Day of Judgment; so He was cast from Paradise into Hell but allowed to live. Yahweh also agreed that Shaytan would be permitted to seduce mankind, to attempt to prove His disobedience justified by their failings. The only power He has is His angelic grace and persuasion, and so He whispers into the ears of humans and jinn alike to remind them that they choose to obey. Shaytan cannot and does not force the hand of mankind; He only reminds them of their inherent desire to sin.

In Sufi teachings, Shaytan is not portrayed as suddenly evil or disgusting but as a fallen angel who wears His curse ‘as a robe of honor.’ The theoretician, Attar of Nishapur, even describes Shaytan as the perfect monotheist and lover who still obeys the every wish of His beloved, and prefers the eternal separation to the union He longs for because that was what Yahweh has willed. He is written as, even within Hell’s fire, being capable of declaring His curse a blessing for “To be cursed by Thee, is a thousand times dearer to me than to turn my head away from Thee to anything else.”

(via caewaiisar)