117–121. “They invoke only females apart from Him, and they invoke none but a rebellious Satan. Allah cursed him, and he said, ‘I will certainly take an appointed share of Your servants. I will surely mislead them and fill them with false hopes. I will command them, and they will slit the ears of livestock; and I will command them, and they will alter Allah’s creation.’ Whoever takes Satan as an ally instead of Allah has certainly suffered a manifest loss. He makes them promises and fills them with false hopes, but Satan promises them nothing but delusion. Their abode is Hell, and they will find no escape from it.”
That is, all these polytheists invoke apart from Allah are females—idols and images bearing feminine names, such as al-Uzzā, Manāt, and the like. It is well known that a name indicates the thing named. Since their names are feminine and deficient, this indicates the deficiency of the beings so named and their lack of perfect attributes. As Allah Most High states in several places in His Book, they neither create nor provide sustenance; they can neither bring benefit nor ward off harm from their worshippers, or even from themselves; they cannot defend themselves against anyone intending them harm; and they possess neither hearing, sight, nor hearts. How, then, can something with these qualities be worshipped, while worship is not devoted exclusively to the One who possesses the most beautiful names and the loftiest attributes; all praise and perfection, glory and majesty, might and beauty, mercy, benevolence, and beneficence; who alone creates and governs; and whose command and decree are founded upon immense wisdom?
“Can this be anything but one of the most reprehensible evils, demonstrating its perpetrator’s deficiency and his descent to the lowest depths of baseness and degradation that anyone could imagine or describe?” ⦗204⦘
Even so (1), their worship is directed toward these deficient idols only in its outward form. In reality, they worship none but Satan, their enemy, who seeks their destruction and pursues it by every means within his power. He is utterly remote from Allah: Allah has cursed him and banished him from His mercy. Just as Allah has banished him from His mercy, he strives to drive His servants away from Allah’s mercy. “He only summons his faction so that they may become companions of the Blaze.”
Allah therefore tells of Satan’s efforts to lead His servants astray and make evil and corruption attractive to them, and how he swore to his Lord: “I will certainly take an appointed share of Your servants”—that is, a fixed share. The accursed one knew that he could not mislead all of Allah’s servants and that he had no authority over Allah’s sincere servants. His authority extends only over those who take him as an ally and prefer obedience to him over obedience to their Master.
Elsewhere, he swore that he would mislead them all: “I will surely mislead them all, except Your sincere servants among them.” This expectation, which the vile one confidently asserted, Allah Most High tells us came to pass: “Iblis’s expectation of them proved true, and they followed him, except a group of the believers.”
Regarding the people constituting this appointed share—whom he swore before Allah he would claim (2)—Allah states what Satan desires and intends for them in his words: “I will surely mislead them,” that is, lead them away from the straight path, misguiding them in both knowledge and action.
“And I will fill them with false hopes.” That is, in addition to misleading them, I will make them hope to attain what the rightly guided attain. This is deception itself. He does not stop at merely misleading them; he also makes their misguidance attractive to them. This adds further evil to their evil: they perform the deeds of the people of the Fire, which warrant punishment, yet imagine that those deeds warrant Paradise. Consider the Jews, Christians, and others like them, of whom Allah relates: “They say, ‘None will enter Paradise unless he is a Jew or a Christian.’ Those are their vain wishes.” “Thus We have made the deeds of every community attractive to them.” “Say, ‘Shall We inform you of the greatest losers in respect of deeds? They are those whose efforts have gone astray in the life of this world while they think they are doing good.’”
Allah Most High also says that, on the Day of Resurrection, the hypocrites will say to the believers: “Were we not with you?” They will reply, “Yes, but you exposed yourselves to temptation, kept waiting, doubted, and were deceived by vain hopes until Allah’s command came; and the great deceiver deceived you concerning Allah.”
His words, “I will command them, and they will slit the ears of livestock,” refer to cutting their ears, as was done with al-Bahīra, al-Sā’iba, al-Wasīla, and al-Hām. By mentioning part of this practice, He draws attention to it in its entirety. This is a form of misguidance that entails declaring unlawful what Allah has made lawful or declaring lawful what Allah has forbidden. Also belonging to it are corrupt beliefs and unjust rulings that constitute some of the gravest forms of misguidance.
“And I will command them, and they will alter Allah’s creation.” This includes altering the outward form through tattooing, filing the teeth to sharpen and thin them, plucking facial hair, creating gaps between the teeth for beauty, and similar practices through which Satan led them astray, so that they altered the creation of the Most Merciful.
This entails discontent with the way He created them, disparagement of His wisdom, the belief that what they fashion with their own hands is better than the creation of the Most Merciful, and dissatisfaction with His decree and governance. It also includes altering one’s inner nature. Allah Most High created His servants as upright monotheists, endowed with a natural disposition to accept and prefer the truth. The devils then came and swept them away from this beautiful nature, making evil, polytheism, disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience attractive to them.
Every child is born upon the natural disposition, but his parents make him Jewish, Christian, or Zoroastrian. These and similar influences alter the nature upon which Allah created His servants: the affirmation of His oneness, love of Him, and knowledge of Him. In this respect, the devils preyed upon them just as predatory beasts and wolves prey upon lone sheep. Were it not for Allah’s gentleness and generosity toward His sincere servants, what befell those who succumbed to temptation would also have befallen them.
What befell them resulted from their turning away from their Lord and Creator (3) and taking as their ally their enemy, who seeks evil for them in every respect. They therefore lost both this world and the Hereafter and came away disappointed from a losing bargain. Hence He says: “Whoever takes Satan as an ally instead of Allah has certainly suffered a manifest loss.” What loss could be clearer or greater than that of one who loses his religion and worldly life and whose sins and misdeeds bring him to ruin? He consequently suffers everlasting misery and is deprived of eternal bliss.
Conversely, whoever takes his Lord as his protector and prefers His pleasure gains every profit, achieves every success, wins happiness in both abodes, and becomes content at heart. No one can withhold what You give, and no one can give what You withhold. O Allah, take us into Your care among those You have taken into Your care, and grant us well-being among those to whom You have granted well-being.
Then He says: “He makes them promises and fills them with false hopes.” That is, Satan makes promises to those whom he seeks to mislead. Here, promising also encompasses threatening, as Allah Most High says: “Satan promises you poverty.” He tells them that if they spend in Allah’s cause, they will become poor. If they strive in Allah’s cause, he frightens them with being killed and other such outcomes, as Allah Most High says: “It is only Satan who frightens you with his allies,” and so forth. Whenever they would choose Allah’s pleasure, he frightens them with every possible and impossible danger he can implant in their minds, until they become too sluggish to do good. Likewise, he fills them with empty hopes that, upon examination, are like a mirage with no reality. Hence He says: “But Satan promises them nothing but delusion. Their abode is Hell.” That is, those who submit to Satan, turn away from their Lord, and become followers and partisans of Iblis—their settled abode is the Fire. “And they will find no escape from it,” meaning no deliverance or refuge; rather, they will remain there forever and ever.