When Allah created Adam and commanded the angels to prostrate themselves before him, they all prostrated themselves except Satan, who thenceforward was cursed. Satan’s response was to ask Allah for a reprieve till the Day of Resurrection. This was so that he would have the opportunity to make people transgress. Once reprieved by Allah, he committed himself to a course of action intended to derail mankind:
“He said: ‘Because You have sent me astray, surely I will lie in wait against them (human beings) on Your Straight Path. Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left, and You will not find most of them as thankful ones’”
“ ’I will mislead them, and I will create in them false desires; I will order them to slit the ears of cattle, and to change the nature created by Allah.’ Whoever, forsaking Allah, takes satan for a friend, hath of a surety suffered a loss that is manifest.”
One who is unaware of the menace of Satan, cannot protect himself against him and can easily be deceived by him. Therefore, believers should be fully alert to Satan, as is commanded in the Qur’an:
“Verily Satan is an enemy to you:
so treat him as an enemy. He only invites his adherents, that they may become Companions of the Blazing Fire.”
Those who should be the most cautious about Satan are the believers, because it is they who are Satan’s actual targets. There is no need for him to try to make the unbelievers transgress; because they have already turned out to belong to his own army. He, therefore, strives to the utmost to weaken the believers so as to prevent them from serving Allah. That is why believers are particularly warned against Satan:
“O you who believe! Follow not Satan’s footsteps:
if any will follow the footsteps of Satan, he will (but) command what is shameful and wrong: and were it not for the grace and mercy of Allah on you, not one of you would ever have been pure: but Allah doth purify whom He pleases: and Allah is One Who hears and knows (all things).”
As Allah says in the Qur’an, true believers will not be affected by the activities of Satan. But those who are weak and heedless may be easily influenced by his delusions. Never should we forget that Satan is ceaselessly striving to promote evil. Believers should always be on their guard and keep Allah in mind at all times.
