Monday, July 20, 2020

Some thoughts about the logical conclusions of Satan/Shaytan/Iblis

Firstly, only God is omnipresent and nothing seems to suggest otherwise for angels and Shaytan, the obvious implication therefore unless Angels and Iblis are shown to be omnipresence, would be that they are internal rather external.
Not internal as in materialistically psychologizing them but that their ontological status is implicitly psychospiritual. They are given divine status with their nearness to al-Arsh/al-Kursi ("the Throne"), but they are said to have seeming infinite inter-relations with our material and psychological world, likewise as recorders or monitors for the divine record/tablet which is outside of time, therefore progenitors of it inside of time.
They are also guardians over everything, as well as us on a psychological level.
With Iblis, my reading of him from the Holy Qur'an and Hadith of the Ahlulbayt strongly imply him as an archetypal symbol used from a real angel/djinn representing the traits (psycho-mental-spiritual) that are allowed to inhibit or test us as manifesting to the soul.
The nature of what Iblis personifies (as the actual Iblis logically cannot be omnipresent, and cannot literally tease everyone at once) self-importance, arrogance, vice, prejudice and even racism (though racism isn't entirely the accurate word, seeing that it is between an angel/djinn and a human); all of these being progenitors of ignorance (Jahl).
Now Iblis and the Shaytan are sometimes used interchangeably, but when taken outside of the story of his refusal to prostrate before Adam (A.S.), the khalafa, he should be taken as a symbol.
When phrases like "don't let the Shaytan tempt you" are used, it should be fairly obvious that the real intended meaning hermeneutical meaning of this analogy is "don't embody the traits of the Shaytan", because nothing actually tempts us, rather we ourselves embody it.

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