just as the devils once entered the idols and spoke to the idol-worshippers.

Among these people is one to whom a devil appears and says, “I am al-Khadr,” sometimes telling him certain facts or helping him secure some of his aims. The same has happened to more than one individual among Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike.

Many unbelievers in both East and West witness the following: when one of them dies, a devil comes after the death in the dead man’s very likeness. They imagine it is the deceased—he settles his debts, returns what had been entrusted to him, performs other tasks connected to the dead man, even enters upon his wife and then departs. At times they have already burned the corpse—as the idol-worshippers of India do—yet they still think the man has come back to life.

One story concerns an old man in Egypt. He instructed his servant, “When I die, do not let anyone wash me; I shall come and wash myself.” After he died, the servant saw a person in his exact form and assumed it was his master entering to wash the body. When that visitor finished washing “himself,” he vanished. In reality it was a devil. The devil had misled the man beforehand by telling him, “After you die you will return and wash yourself,” and once the man had died the devil reappeared in his likeness to deceive the living just as he had once deceived the deceased.

Another of these people beholds a throne suspended in mid-air with a light above it, and he hears a voice saying, “I am your Lord.” If he is among those who possess genuine knowledge of Allah, he realizes it is a devil, rebukes him, and seeks refuge in Allah; the apparition then disappears.