the devils are drawn further into their error by the devils. “And never desist”: the devils never desist from supporting and encouraging them, nor do those people desist from their error. In that state of error, they fail to perceive what they already know and what is firmly rooted in their innate disposition; instead, they forget it. Thus, the messengers come only to remind the innate disposition of what it already knows, to strengthen and reinforce that knowledge, and to remove whatever alters the innate disposition. The messengers were sent to affirm and perfect the innate disposition, not to change or transform it. Perfection is attained through the innate disposition perfected by the revealed law.

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This forgetfulness—a person’s forgetting himself and what lies within him—results from his forgetting his Lord and what He has revealed. Allah Most High says:

“And do not be like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves. It is they who are defiantly disobedient.”

He also says concerning the hypocrites:

“They forgot Allah, so He abandoned them.”

And He says:

“Thus Our signs came to you, but you forgot them; and so today you will be forgotten.”

His words, “And do not be like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves,” indicate that their forgetting Allah caused them to forget themselves, and that when they forgot Allah, He punished them by making them forget themselves.