The devil appears in the Qur’an as either Iblis or al-shaytan (“the satan”). The Qur’an describes the devil’s revolt against God in four sorts of dialogue between God and Iblis (7:12–19, 15:31–40, 17:61–65, 38:71–85). One of the views that emerges is that the devil will be very successful in trying to get human beings to go awry. Some Qur’anic passages seem to suggest that Iblis before his fall was an angel, others that he was a jinn or, in 18:50, both. His importance is in resisting God and interfering with divine guidance. He fi rst of all succeeds with Adam and Eve (7:19–22), where he tempts them and lies to them. He is keen on whispering to human beings and persuading them to do the wrong thing. On the day of judgment humanity will be divided into Satan’s group (hizb al-shaytan 58:19), which will go to hell, and God’s party (hizb allah 58:22), which will enter paradise. The devil is omnipresent and has to be constantly resisted. Special care must be taken in certain activities: “When you recite the Qur’an, seek refuge in God from the accursed Satan” (16:98). Although the devil is powerful, his power will come to an end. After the day of judgment the devil and his hosts will be thrown into hell (26:94–95) just like human sinners. “Whispering,” waswas, is used four times in the Qur’an as a verb and once as a noun, functioning as an attribute of Satan. In Qur’an 7:20 and 20:120, Satan whispers to Adam and his wife in the Garden of Eden; in 50:16, also in the context of creation, it is said that God knows that the “self,” the human soul, whispers to itself. In 114:4–5, the fi nal surah of the Qur’an, Satan is portrayed as the evil whisperer who insinuates himself into the hearts of people.
Charity in Islam: Helping the Needy as the Act of Faith
