his adherence to religious innovation and makes him one of its followers, he too becomes his deputy and one of his advocates.
If the servant thwarts him at this level, having already been blessed by Allah with adherence to the Sunnah and enmity towards the people of innovation and misguidance, he moves him to the third level of evil: major sins of every kind. He is particularly eager to make him fall into them, especially if he is a scholar whom people follow. He is intent on this so that he can drive people away from him. He then spreads news of his sins and acts of disobedience among the people, appointing some of them to circulate and publicize them, supposedly out of religious devotion and to draw closer to Allah Most High. Such a person is Iblīs’s deputy without realizing it.
For those who love to see indecency spread among the believers will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter.
This applies when they merely love to see it spread and publicized. What, then, if they themselves undertake to spread and publicize it, not out of sincere concern, but in obedience to Iblīs and as his deputies? All this is intended to drive people away from that scholar and prevent them from benefiting from him.
That man’s sins—even if they reach the heights of heaven—are less grave before Allah than the sins of these people. His sins are wrongs he commits against himself; if he seeks Allah’s forgiveness and repents to Him, Allah accepts his repentance and replaces his evil deeds with good ones.
Their sins, however, involve wronging the believers, searching out their faults, and deliberately seeking to disgrace them. Allah, glorified be He, is ever watchful; the hidden designs of hearts and the secret schemes of souls are not concealed from Him.
If Satan fails at this level, he moves him to the fourth level: minor sins, which, when accumulated, may destroy the person who commits them. As the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
“Beware of sins that are regarded as insignificant. Their likeness is that of people who stopped in a wilderness.”
He related a hadith to the effect that each of them brought a stick of firewood until they had kindled a great fire, over which they cooked and roasted food.
He keeps making light of minor sins for him until he comes to regard them as trivial. Thus, someone who commits a major sin but fears its consequences is in a better state than he is.