—and whichever of these three gains the upper hand determines your rank: if you overcome your appetite and your whim, you rise above the rank of an angel; but if your whim and appetite overcome you, you sink lower than a dog.
• When the dog hunts for its master, its game is lawful; when it keeps the catch for itself, the game it caught is forbidden.
• Every instance of good or evil in the servant, every praiseworthy or blameworthy trait, issues from the divine attribute of the Giver and the Withholder. The Almighty moves His servants back and forth between the implications of these two Names. The genuine servant, therefore, has two constant acts of worship: gratitude when He grants, and humble dependence when He withholds. He bestows so that the servant may thank Him, and He withholds so that the servant may feel his need of Him—thus the servant remains ever grateful, ever needy.
• His words, “And the unbeliever is ever an ally against his Lord” (Q 25:55), are among the Quran’s most subtle turns of speech and loftiest meanings.
The believer is always with Allah against his own soul, his whim, his devil, and the enemies of his Lord. This is what it means to belong to the Party of Allah, to be of His troops and His allies: he stands with Allah against His enemy, both the one within and the one without; he fights them, opposes them, and angers them for His sake—just as a king’s inner circle fight alongside him against his foes, while those distant from the king remain unconcerned.
By contrast, the unbeliever is with his devil, his soul, and his whim against his Lord.
The statements of the early generations all revolve around this. Ibn Abī Ḥātim reported (1) from ʿAtāʾ ibn Dīnār, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, who said: “He is a helper of Satan against his Lord through enmity and idolatry.”