#vatan

The tradition that Satan invented poetry, mentioned by Shams-e Qays, is in part inspired by an ancient Arabian notion that personal “satans,” much like the “demons” of the ancient Greeks, were responsible for creative impulses. A far more important source of the complex personality of Satan in Islam is the Koranic story of Satan’s first disobedience. According to the Koran, after God molded man from clay and breathed life into him, He ordered the angels to bow before man, and one among the angels—Satan—refused and declared, “I am better than he; You created me from fire and You created him from earth.” And for this God expelled and cursed Satan. Satan, however, asked and was granted a respite from God’s judgment until the day of the Resurrection, and Satan said, “Then, by Your power I will surely lead them all astray, except for Your servants among them, those pure in heart.” Satan’s independence among the angels, God’s willingness to give him a respite, and Satan’s obedient acknowledgment that he was the instrument of God’s power suggested a more interesting Prince of Darkness than a mere “personification of evil,” however full-bloodedly evil this personification might seem in some Koranic passages. The Sufis gazed at the possibilities of this complex Satan with fascination and, especially in the Persian-speaking Eastern Islamic world, they developed an alternate Satan. This Satan was the ultimate monotheist, the angel whose worship of God was so single-hearted that he refused to bow to man because he would bow only to God, the “lover” whose love was so unreserved that he accepted a role of alienation from the Divine Beloved because of his loving obedience to the divine command. The morally rehabilitated Satan is, in fact, a kind of martyr. In the poetry of Attar, Satan explains his motives, his suffering, and his understanding of God’s secret purpose in casting him out: