the soothsayers. Abū Abraq al-Aslamī was one of the soothsayers before he embraced Islam. If the people are Muslims, however, such a man does not openly present himself as a soothsayer; instead, he portrays this as a miraculous gift, though he is of the same kind as the soothsayers. For the jinn serves the human with these reports only in return for what he gains from him: the human obeys him in something he desires, whether associating partners with Allah, committing sexual indecency, consuming what is unlawful, or killing someone unjustly.

The devils pursue what Allah has forbidden—disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience. They delight in evil and turmoil, loving these things even when they derive no benefit from them. They tell a thief to steal, then go to the owners of the property and say, “So-and-so stole your belongings.”

Hence people speak of the angelic, animal, predatory, and satanic faculties. The angelic faculty comprises beneficial knowledge and righteous deeds; the animal faculty comprises appetites, such as eating and drinking; and the predatory faculty comprises anger, which serves to repel what causes harm. The satanic faculty, however, is pure evil: it neither secures benefit nor wards off harm.

The philosophers and others like them who have no knowledge of jinn and devils do not recognize this faculty. They recognize only appetite and anger. Appetite and anger were created to serve a beneficial purpose; what is blameworthy is transgressing the bounds in either. Satan, however, commands evil that brings no benefit, and he loves it, as Iblīs did to Adam when he whispered to him, and just as