The concept of Shaitan in Islam

In the triangle of Allah, man and Satan, Satan falls at no. three. Man's relationship with Allah is vertical whereas with Satan horizontal. They three at their individual places make angles that joined with each other make a triangle that matches nowhere to no one. To understand Allah (I mean the ways of Allah to us, not to all creatures) the understanding of Man and Satan is compulsory. In the same way to understand Satan the understanding of Allah and Man is very urgent. ( To understand manI don't want to write. It seems to obvious.) The Holy Quraan gives us so many references to the creation of man. For example it says that Allah created Man from mud (or some such thing mixed up with water) breathed His spirit in him and taught him knowledge. (In the Quraan the word Rooh [spirit] is used in quite a different sense. We feel as if Rooh is one of the creations. The Rooh as an element of Allah's inner Self, as it is of ours, is not quite clear.)

However, these are the three main ingredients of Man's composition. Every other thing in the human composition is subordinate to at least one of these three. Mud is our body, Rooh is our spirit and knowledge is our mind. Now these are not the three ingredients of composition but three stages of human being. These stages pertain to not only the inner life of a human being but also the outer, not only individual life but also the life in general, not only the life in generation but also the life in surrounding. All human beings have to undergo these three stages. The first one in womb, the second one in the early years of innocence, and the third one when he starts feeling shame in the third, fifth or seventh year of his life. The early life on this planet was the life of mud and water. This is perhaps considered as cave age. The spirit was not yet breathed in this age. After the Great Flood Allah breathed His spirit in the life on this planet and human beings started living with mud and spirit. The knowledge was yet to be taught. The age of knowledge, the age of feeling shame got started when Allah gave rise to the Greeks. In the coming years, up to the advent of Christianity that destroyed idols in the West of the world, and Islam that destroyed idols in the East of the world, the spirit had to live and encounter with mind (knowledge) not mud (body). I mean the ways of worship up to that age were related to ceremonies not concepts. The world body had dwindled down and world spirit was at its top. The world
mind was yet to take its first leap. (the definition of time and age in this way is based on the concept that the sixty year life of an individual is like the sixty centuries life of the world. Sometimes I feel that as there are cells, tissues, sperms or Allah knows what in our body, we are living like cells, tissues sperms, in the big, big invisible body of some Sample Human Being.) Leaving this too vogue a topic I come to the composition of Man. Composed so, the Man started living in Heaven. Before this start of living in heaven, Quraan tells us about two major incidents. First one as Allah's dialogue with angels that when He said that He was to appoint Man as His vicegerent on earth, they asked if He was to appoint one who would destroy the things and spill blood on earth. At this Allah said He knew what they did not.
In Allah's dialogue with angels we come to know that angels are trying to point out the possible weaknesses of Man. In the second incident, Allah ordered the angels to fall prostrate before Man [Adam] as soon as He breathed His spirit in him. Except Iblis {shaitan} all angels obeyed this order and fell prostrate. When Allah asked Iblis why he didn't fall prostrate, he said that Man was made out mud whereas he [Iblis] was made out of fire. In fact he tried to give Allah the reason that he did not fall prostrate to Man because he thought he was superior to Man not inferior. Perhaps he considered fire stronger than mud. Whatever the case was, Allah rebuked him on doing so and condemned him to fall and separation from divine abode [heaven]. The words Iblis or Satan said at this very moment are very important. He said that the thing wherewith Allah put him in trial [kidnapped his judgment], he would put the whole race of human beings in trial with that very thing. This is our first introduction with Satan. We come to know that he thought Man inferior to him, and that he told, informed or threatened Allah that provided with an opportunity he would lead the whole generation of this Man to Hell. At this Allah said that he would lead astray the people but not those of His Own. So Satan would not have any control over the pure servants of Allah. The third incident that took place in the life before the life on this earth was Satan's beguiling of Adam. Satan approached the abode of Adam in heaven and enticed him to eat the forbidden fruit. The way he convinced Adam on eating that forbidden fruit is very important to understand the ways of Satan to Man. He convinced Adam that the time he would eat that forbidden fruit he would become immortal (a comparatively better position) and get the knowledge of life and death. At this Adam forgot the command Allah, followed his own choice and got what we all are still undergoing and getting: the fall from higher position to a lower, from spirit to mind, from obedience to disobedience, from heaven (pleasure) to earth (pain) and so and so. Our fall started with that action is not yet complete. It is still going on. Each one of us is repeating that action in his own way in his own time in his own surrounding. We are bound to do what Adam did. We can't do otherwise. Adam was provided with choice we are not provided with choice. The efforts of becoming better and better [with respect to the fellow men] socially, economically, knowledge wise etc. and getting immortality [serving arts, inventions, humanity, animals etc] have become our ultimate fate.
Only the pure servants of Allah can resist these temptations. All other temptations of Satan fall subordinate to the one described in the above paragraphs. Made out fire, the former pedagogue of angels, the ex-most-beautiful creation of Allah, Iblis or Shaitan [the Lucifer or Satan of non muslims] is now the sole enemy of Man. He was enemy but he has become a friend now. The modern man is no more fearful of his enmity. He shapes the things in so decorated a way, brings us to nudity in so convincing a way, argues us on leaving worships in so perfect a way that we have stopped thinking about him as an enemy. The thing wherewith Allah led him astray or kidnapped (you may find some more proper word) namely the reasoning intellect that doesn't look deeper than surface, that doesn't see invisible, the intellect wherewith he could not judge his own position, the intellect that told him that fire was superior to mud, the intellect that could not see that the man he was thinking superior to, was rather every thing, even Satan. The composition of man was not as simple as that of angels and Satan. Today the man is in between the two extremes: Allah and Satan. The Man is like a zero on whose right are +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 and on whose left are -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, . With the type of intellect Satan was kidnapped, we have also been kidnapped. With this intellect we have refused to accept Allah's commands as Satan did when he was ordered to fall prostrate. With this intellect we have tried to get immortality and progress in this world as Adam did in the world of heavens. Satan is the extreme form of this intellect. He is the incarnation. Comparatively we are provided with a little portion of that intellect but in working and function is performs the same. This intellect advised us to leave all superstitious things, and we left the concept of Allah too. The concept of Allah being the most superstitious of all. Superstitious things and beliefs were in fact our efforts and capacities to probe the invisible. When we stopped the working of this portion of mind we stopped ourselves believing in hereafter, heaven and hell. Our intention was to improve our behavior and attitude, our way of living and understanding things, but see what a horrible monster or reasoning is standing in front of us willing to eat all our beliefs the beliefs in society, ethics, religion, relations, etc. etc.
On earth we are progressing but compared with our position in heaven we are descending. The rise of mind is related to fall in spirit. If the mind has started moving towards disobedience i,e. -1, -2, -3 it is moving farther and farther from obedience or Allah. The things on negative side are inclinations towards greed, grudge, selfishness, material benefits, the desires to compete, impress and dominate others either in the name of religion, race, land or complexion, or in the name of democracy, enlightenment and well being. They are Satanic in nature. Compare them with the desires Adam followed and lost the eternal abode.
(In this article I have tried to give you a picture of what Satan did with us when we were mentally infants or children. About what he is doing with us when we are adults or mentally grown up, I shall write another article.)