that benefit him, and all the harms wine causes, are encompassed by the words of Allah Most High:
“And avert you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer.”
Likewise, sowing enmity and hatred is Satan’s ultimate aim. Hence the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
“Shall I tell you of something higher in rank than prayer, fasting, charity, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong?” They replied, “Yes, O Messenger of Allah.” He said, “Mending relations between people, for corrupting relations is the razor. I do not mean that it shaves off hair; rather, it shaves away religion.”
We have explained elsewhere that indecencies, injustice, and other sins give rise to enmity and hatred, and that all enmity or hatred is rooted in disobedience to Allah. Satan commands disobedience in order to lead people into something worse, and, so long as he is able, he is never content to stop at any point.
Moreover, enmity and hatred are pure evil, which no rational person loves. Sins, by contrast, offer pleasure, as with wine and indecencies. People desire these things, and Satan entices them into them until he plunges them into an evil they neither desire nor want. Allah Most High has explained what Satan seeks through wine and gambling, without mentioning what people themselves seek. Then, in Surah al-Nūr, He says:
“O you who believe, do not follow in Satan’s footsteps. Whoever follows in Satan’s footsteps—indeed, he commands indecency and wrongdoing.”