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Iblis (Eblis)
All of the religions in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
complex share a similar idea about the origin of
Satan, which is that he was a prideful angel who
was ejected from heaven. In his postcelestial
career, Satan then took on the task of leading
humanity astray. In Judaism and Christianity,
Satan provokes a war in heaven in which he leads
a revolt against God. He is, of course, defeated, and
he and his followers are ejected from heaven. In
Islam, the story is somewhat different.
In the Muslim tradition there are three orders
of creatures: angels, who are made from light;
jinn, who are made from fire; and human beings,
who are made from clay. The angels were created
first. When God created Adam, He commanded
the angels to worship him. Iblis (often spelled
Eblis) refused on the ground that Adam, who,
after all, was a mere creature of dust and dirt, was
inferior to the angels. As punishment for his
disobedience, Iblis was transformed from an
angel into a jinn. Then Iblis and other angels who
shared his viewpoint were removed from their
stations, and exiled from heaven. They subsequently
became demons, with Iblis playing the
role of the Islamic Satan. Ejected from the presence
of God, these former angels turned to trickery
and causing trouble for mortals. According to
the Koran, Iblis’s first misdeed was to lead Adam
and Eve astray in the Garden of Eden. The Koran
121
also notes that at the end of time Iblis and his
hosts will be tossed into hell.
In an interesting variation on tradition, Sufis
(Islamic mystics) reinterpreted Iblis’s disobedience
as an act of love for God, and as an act of
obedience to the law that only God should be
worshiped. To bow down to Adam, in other
words, would have been an acknowledgment of
another god other than God, and thus an act of
idolatry—a severe sin in the Muslim tradition.
Iblis, to continue this line of interpretation, was a
true lover of God, and thus a Sufi. Iblis knew that
the consequences of his actions would be punishment,
but he preferred remaining true to his love
of God (and the consequences of being
condemned to hell) over being untrue to his love
of God and remaining in heaven.
See also Islam; Jinn
For Further Reading:
The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978.
Glassé, Cyril. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. San
Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1989.
Imp
Imps are minor evil spirits, rather like infernal
fairies. The word from Old English impian, to
graft, means offshoot or cutting, a term that
conveys the impression of imps being offshoots of
Satan. Imps have also been described as the