‘And speak to him gently, so that he may take heed or fear.’
Tā Hā 44.”

I say:

What the hadith states is that the devils commanded them to associate with Him that for which He had sent down no authority. This is the widespread disease affecting most of the children of Adam: associating partners with Allah, as He, Most High, says:

“Most of them do not believe in Allah without also associating partners with Him.”
Yūsuf 106.

As for taʿtīl (denial), it is a disease confined to particular individuals and scarcely arises except from obstinate defiance, as happened with Pharaoh.

The hadith does not say that the devils enticed them to regard themselves as having no need of the Creator. That occurs only among certain people, or among many people under certain circumstances. It is a form of sophistry—indeed, the worst form of sophistry. Sophistry does not persist universally among large numbers of people; rather, it affects certain people, or many people with respect to certain matters.

He said:

“Whoever journeys towards Allah finds the distance shortened with even the slightest inward turn, recognizing his need for Him in his coming into being, his continued existence, and his changing states and circumstances. He then gains insight, proceeding from the signs on the horizons to the signs within the self. Then he takes Him as evidence for the dominion, rather than the dominion as evidence for Him…”
And so on.