Then He goes on to set out the traits of the one who is to be flung down, mentioning six in all:

1. He is a thoroughgoing ingrate toward Allah’s favors and His due rights—an obstinate disbeliever in His religion, His oneness, His names and attributes, a disbeliever in His messengers and His angels, a disbeliever in His scriptures and in meeting Him.

2. He opposes the truth, driving it away in sheer denial and stubbornness.

3. He withholds every form of good. This covers the good that would benefit himself—acts of obedience and drawing near to Allah—and the good that would benefit other people. Thus he brings no good to himself or to his fellow human beings, which is the state of most of creation.

4. Together with his refusal to do good, he is an aggressor against people—unjust, high-handed, transgressing against them with both hand and tongue.

5. He is steeped in suspicion and doubt; moreover, he plunges into every dubious matter. One says of a man that he is murīb when he is given to suspicion.

6. On top of all this, he is a polytheist: he has taken another deity alongside Allah—worshiping it, loving it, becoming angry and pleased for its sake, swearing oaths by it, making vows to it, forging alliances and enmities around it.

When the reckoning comes he and his satanic companion will dispute, the man shifting the blame to that companion and insisting that it was he who lured him into rebellion and error. The companion will reply, “I had no power to misguide him or drive him to transgression; he was already in far-flung error, which he chose for himself and preferred to the truth”—just as Iblīs will say to the people of Hell: “I had no authority over you except that I called you and you answered me” (Qur’an 14:22). Accordingly, the qarin mentioned here is his personal devil; the two of them will quarrel before Allah.