He said, “What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?” He replied, “I am better than he: You created me from fire and created him from clay.” He said, “Then descend from it, for it is not for you to behave arrogantly therein. So depart! You are indeed among the abased.” He said, “Grant me respite until the Day they are resurrected.” He said, “You are among those granted respite.”
Allah rebuked him for this, saying: “What prevented you from prostrating to the one whom I created with My two hands?” That is: I honored him and favored him with this distinction, which no one else possessed; yet you disobeyed My command and treated Me with contempt?
Iblis replied, disputing with his Lord: “I am better than he.” He then sought to substantiate this false claim by saying: “You created me from fire and created him from clay.”
This argument assumes that one created from fire is superior to one created from clay because fire rises above clay and ascends. Yet this analogy is among the most corrupt of all analogies. It is invalid in several respects:
One is that it stands in opposition to Allah’s command that he prostrate. Whenever analogy conflicts with an explicit text, it is invalid, for the purpose of analogy is to establish a ruling in a case for which no explicit text exists by comparing it to matters governed by explicit texts, thus remaining subordinate to them.
As for an analogy that opposes those texts and whose acceptance would entail nullifying them, it is among the most reprehensible of analogies.
Another is that his mere assertion, “I am better than he,” is itself sufficient evidence of the wicked Iblis’s deficiency. He demonstrated his own deficiency through self-admiration, arrogance, and speaking about Allah without knowledge. What deficiency could be greater than this?
Another is that he lied in claiming that the substance of fire is superior to that of clay and earth. Clay possesses humility, stillness, and composure, and from it emerge the blessings of the earth—trees and every variety of plant, with all their differing kinds and forms. Fire, by contrast, possesses levity, rashness, and the power to burn.
Thus, after Iblis did what he did, he fell from his lofty rank to the lowest of the low.
Allah therefore said to him: “Then descend from it”—that is, from Paradise—“for it is not for you to behave arrogantly therein,” because it is the abode of those who are good and pure, and is therefore no fitting place for the vilest and most wicked of Allah’s creatures.
“So depart! You are indeed among the abased”—that is, among those humiliated and brought low. In recompense for his arrogance and self-admiration, he received humiliation and abasement.
When the enemy of Allah openly declared his enmity toward Allah, Adam, and Adam’s descendants, he asked Allah for respite and delay until the Day of Resurrection, so that he might lead astray as many of Adam’s descendants as he could.
Since Allah’s wisdom required that His servants be tried and tested, so that the truthful might be distinguished from the liar and those who obey Him from those who obey His enemy, He granted Iblis’s request and said: “You are among those granted respite.”