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wa-mā kāna lahū ʿalayhim min sulṭānin ʾillā li-naʿlama man yuʾminu bi-l-ʾākhirati mimman huwa minhā fī shakkin wa-rabbuka ʿalā kulli shayʾin ḥafīẓun
He had no authority over them, but that We may ascertain those who believe in the Hereafter from those who are in doubt about it, and your Lord is watchful over all things.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah As-Saba- Verses 20-21
20. “And certainly ’Iblis found true his conjecture concerning them, so they followed him, except a party of the believers.”
21. “And he has no authority over them, save that We would know (distinguished) him who believes in the Hereafter, from him who is in doubt concerning it, and your Lord is the Preserver of all things.”
Satan cannot make people force to do something, and that they follow ’Iblis is based upon their authority and their own decision. Belief in the existence of Hereafter is like a barrier against Satan. These verses are, in fact, a kind of general conclusion from the story of ‘the people of Sheba’ which was stated in the previous verses, and we realized that how they involved in all those misfortunes and deprivations as the result of submitting to low desires and temptations of Satan.
In the first verse, it says:
Or in other words, the Satan’s prophecy that, after denying of prostrating in front of Adam and being banished from the Presence of Allah, ’Iblis said:
Satan said this sentence by conjecture and guess, but finally this conjecture and guess became true, and the weak-faith people who were feeble in their will moved after him group by group. There were a small group of believers who broke the chains of Satan’s temptations and were not deceived by his traps. They came in freely, they lived freely, and they passed away freely. Though they were scanty from the point of number, each of them matched a world from the point of value.
Ali (as) says:
“…they are few in number, but they are great in esteem before Allah…” 44
In relation to the temptations of ’Iblis and those who go into the realm of his influence and those who are outside this realm, through the second verse the Qur’an points to two subjects. At first it says:
It is we who let him and issue the permission of his arrival into the country of our mind and body. This is the same thing that the Holy Qur’an in another occurrence from the tongue of Satan says:
But it is clear that after accepting his invitation from the side of some faithless and sensual persons, Satan will not stay motionless, but he will make the foundations of his domination firm on their selves. So, in the continuation of the verse, the Qur’an adds about the aim of Satan’s freedom, as follows:
It is obvious that Allah (s.w.t.) is aware of every thing that happens in this world, from the pre-eternity to the future eternity. Therefore, the Qur’anic term /lina‘lama/ (We would know) does not mean that He does not distinguish the believers from those who are in doubt.
The temptations of Satan must come across so that they can be distinguished, but the purpose of this sentence is the objective accomplishment of the knowledge of Allah, since Allah never punishes persons from His innate knowledge and because of their deeds in potency, but there must be provided a sense of trial, the temptations of Satan and low desires begin so that every body authoritatively and with complete free will brings out what he has in his inside than the objective accomplishment of Allah’s knowledge appears, because there will not be any deserving of reward and retribution unless an action is fulfilled practically in outside.
In other words, no one will be rewarded or punished only because of innate goodness or innate evil, unless what is in potency appears in action. At the end, as a warning to all the servants of Allah, the Qur’an says:
It says such so that the followers of Satan do not imagine that any thing of their deeds or sayings will disappear in this world, or Allah forgets it. No, never. Allah keeps and protects them all for the Day of Justice.
Footnotes