Iblis: A Psychological Profile | Nouman Ali Khan

The Strategic Mind of Iblis

Iblis is actually very strategic. He's not delusional. He's not crazy. He's not a psychotic person. He doesn't have a psychological disorder. He's actually very intelligent. He's very, very intelligent. He's the ultimate marketing strategist. He's the ultimate propaganda specialist.

Let us go right into the middle of the story in Surah al-A'raf. Allah said, "What stopped you that you didn't do sujood when I commanded you? What stopped you?" So now this is really interesting. Allah didn't say, "Why did you disobey?" He didn't say لِمَ عَصَيْتَنِي or لِمَ رَفَضْتَ. He said, "What stopped you?" مَا مَنَعَكَ - What stopped you?

Something inside his personality stopped him. He was going to do it. He was going to do sujood, but then something got in the way, and Allah is telling us there's something inside him that gets in the way.

The Intellectual Capacity of Iblis

A few quick things: Does Iblis have intellect? Is he smart? Yes. Does he have free will? Yes. Does he have a sense of right and wrong? Does he have moral responsibility? Yes, he has all of those things.

When he disobeyed Allah, this is different from when an atheist disobeys Allah. This is different from when someone who says "I have nothing to do with religion" disobeys Allah, because they're like, "God? Allah? What Allah? I don't know what Allah is. I don't have to obey anyone. I'm a free person."

He doesn't see himself that way. He knows that he is a slave of Allah. So he's intelligent, he has free will, he's morally responsible, and he's knowledgeable. Now Allah is telling him: you have all the checkboxes. When somebody has all of those checkboxes - you have intelligence, you have ability to understand, you know who Allah is, you know you're a slave - then there's no reason to disobey. Something must be very big that got in the way that kept you from obeying a direct command from Allah.

The Directness of Divine Command

You also have to understand: when he received this command - we receive a command, for example the command to pray. We receive this command in revelation. We receive it in the Quran. But we don't see Allah. We don't hear Allah. We just read Allah's book. We hear it from a Prophet.

Iblis is hearing this command from whom? From Allah directly. He's not receiving it indirectly from a messenger, an angel who came to a messenger, then the messenger came to the people, and many generations later now you're here. No, it's very direct - directly from Allah.

Can you imagine the difference between your need to obey Allah, the seriousness of obeying Allah, if Allah is talking to you directly, as opposed to if you are getting the message thousands of years later from revelation? There's a difference, isn't it?

On Judgment Day, nobody will dare to disobey Allah. Why? Allah is right in front of them. Allah is right in front of him telling him "do sujood" and he says no. Of course, if you are in the presence of Allah, you have fear of Allah. But something inside him is even bigger than the fear of Allah - something so big it stopped him.

The Self-Image Crisis

This has to be understood properly. He has a picture of himself. When you look in the mirror, when I look in the mirror, we see ourselves. But even when you don't look in the mirror, you have a concept of yourself. You have a self-image: "I am this person. I go to this university. I am a teacher. I am respected. I am this. I'm the head of my family. I have these qualities," etc.

So you have a picture of yourself, and part of that picture - you make that picture a lot. Sometimes people make that picture based on comparison to others: "I am better than this one. I'm better than this one. I'm number one. I'm the top executive. I'm the CEO. I own these many businesses. I graduated from the best university. I make more money than my brother. I'm my dad's favorite child. I'm the most beautiful. When I walk in the room, everybody looks at me. Nobody pays attention to anyone else. I have these many followers."

All of these things are part of your image. This is what makes you important. For some people, their image has to do with how much people give them value. Your value doesn't come from yourself. Your value comes from how people see you.

When Allah gave this command that sujood will be done to Adam to all of the angels, all of a sudden he had a picture in his head that nobody is more special than me. "I have this VIP status. All the angels are here. There's no other jinn here. All the other people here are angels. I'm the only jinn who gets to be here. I got some special stuff." He looks himself in the mirror and says, "Yep, time for the meeting. No other jinn has made it this far. Nobody. That's who I am. Look at the place Allah has given me. And when Allah talks to angels, he includes me."

So he has a very high self-image. And Allah is making this announcement about this other - "Who's this? Why is he special? And if he's special, then I'm not that special anymore. If he's getting all this attention and Allah is saying all the angels have to do sujood this way, including me - what about me? I've been here a long time. I've done these many things. That's why I got promoted. I deserve it. What did he do to deserve it? He doesn't deserve it."

The Choice Between Pride and Obedience

So now what gets inside him is - you know, I told you we have an image of ourselves. The image of himself is shaken because part of his image was "I am more special than everybody else. I'm number one." Now he feels like, "If I'm not number one, I don't accept number two. Either you're number one or you're zero. I need to be number one. There's no way you get to break my self-image."

So he has to decide: either he will break the rule of Allah, or he will break his self-image - his picture of himself. He has to decide, and he decided, "I cannot break my pride. I cannot break my self-image. I would rather disobey Allah."

He is actually scared of letting go of that image. He can't let it go. He's actually afraid of it, because "If I let go of that image, then I'm like everyone else. I'm equal." Because when they do sujood - like we're gonna do sujood in salah - when we do sujood, nobody's ahead of anybody else. Everybody's down in the same place. Everybody's equal. No special status. No special recognition. This is a great challenge for Iblis.

The Blame Game

So what does he do now? This is the next part. I kept telling you that he's very intelligent. "My pride was hurt, but I'm not the one at fault. Somebody did this to me."

He finds two people to blame. He blames Adam and he blames Allah. He blames two - one was not enough. He has to blame two.

First he blames Adam, and his anger towards Adam is: "If Adam wasn't there, I would have been special. If Adam wasn't there, if he didn't come along, I would have still been number one. All of this is happening because of him."

Did Adam ever do anything to Iblis? No. But Iblis is so hurt by the existence of Adam. Now he has to spend the rest of his existence taking revenge from Adam. And Adam is sitting there: "What did I do, bro? Allah just made me. I didn't say do sujood to me. Allah said it. I didn't say it. Just leave me alone."

"No, no, no, no. I'm gonna destroy you and your kids and their kids and their kids." And the more revenge he takes - does he destroy the children of Adam? Yeah. The more children he destroys, eventually when you destroy, you feel like, "Okay, I had my revenge. I had enough. I burned enough people." Nope. It's not done, because the problem isn't Adam at all. The problem is his image broke, and no matter how many people you destroy, you can't fix this. You can't restore this. That's where his problem actually is, and he can't let go. The rage keeps going.

You might meet people in your life whose rage doesn't go away. It's possible. It might be me. It might be you whose rage doesn't go away. You can't forgive. You can't let go.

And on the other side, he even blamed Allah. "Yeah, Allah, you created this situation. You put me in a trap. It's you to blame." So not only do you blame people, you also start blaming your religion. You blame Allah too. "You did this, so I'm gonna take revenge."

This need for revenge, this need for destruction, this need for "how dare you" - a life of sabotage, lifelong sabotage.

The Value System of Shaytan

This has another dimension. If you think the only value you have is being special, Iblis thinks the only value he has is being number one. Your value doesn't come from what you do. Your value comes from how people see you.

Listen carefully: the value does not come from what you do, according to Iblis. Doesn't matter what you do. The value comes from how people see you. If you're the CEO, "I have respect because I'm the CEO. If I'm a terrible CEO, if I'm a mean CEO, if I'm a greedy CEO, if I'm a corrupt CEO - it doesn't matter. I get respect because I'm the CEO."

If somebody's a taxi driver, "He shouldn't get too much respect because he's just a taxi driver. Doesn't matter if he's honest, doesn't matter if he takes care of his family, doesn't matter if he's truthful, doesn't matter if he prefers the truth over a lie. No, no, no. What you do does not give you respect. Your rank gives you respect. The CEO's over there, taxi driver's down here."

Iblis, in his mind: your value does not come from what you do. Your value comes from how people see you, from your rank. This is the fundamental thing he wants to put inside human beings: you should see your value not from what you do, you should see your value from how people see you. How many followers do you have? Are you taller than this person or shorter than this person? Are you getting more attention, or are you making more money, or are they making more money? What brand clothes are you wearing? Your entire value comes from identity, not from contribution. That's the value system.

This is the value system - so many young faces here - this is the value system you are being fed constantly on social media: What car are you driving? What kind of house do you live in? What kind of clothes are you wearing? What does your physical appearance look like? What brands do you have? How many people laugh at your jokes? This is value. This is where value comes from.

And you know, when you become that obsessed with value, then there are people who understand that this value problem is for stupid people, so they prey on your stupidity. So you can go to a mall and you'll see Louis Vuitton and Chanel and Rolex and all this stuff. A Chanel bag - thousands of dollars - is still made from a cow. It wasn't made from a cow on the moon or radioactive material. It's just a bag, and it still holds your cheap stuff. But you know what? "If I hold that bag, it's not the bag that has more value because I'm holding it. I have more value. Look at what I have in my hand. Look at the watch I'm wearing. Look at the car I'm driving." This is Iblis's process.

From Value to Revenge

Now he got removed from number one, so if he got removed, he has no value according to him. He has no value. Now when a person believes that they have no value, and they say, "Okay, you think I have no value? I will make sure that you can never avoid me. I will keep creating problems for you, and I will keep giving you pain, because even if I'm not valuable, I'll never be forgettable. I'll always be there to create problems for you, because now my only value is being relevant. And how can I be relevant? By causing pain. That's the only relevance I have left. I must do it because it will give me value. This is how I will be remembered, because if I don't cause pain and I'm not number one, I become invisible. I would rather create problems than be invisible."

That's what I would rather do. This mindset takes over that instead of me changing my behavior, "I need to change the way people see me. If they don't see me as number one, they'll see me as the biggest problem. If I wasn't the best number one, I'll be the worst number one. But I still got number one. I think I won somehow." This is the mentality, and that's what he wants for human beings. That's what he wants for us.

The Strategic Deception

We have to step back and understand what he's doing. And the last thing I'll share with you, because my time's up, is that Iblis is actually very strategic. He's not delusional. He's not crazy. He's not a psychotic person. He doesn't have a psychological disorder. He's actually very intelligent. He's very, very intelligent. He's the ultimate marketing strategist. He's the ultimate propaganda specialist.

But what goes on in his own head? In his own head, he created a story. In that story, who did the wrong thing? Allah did something wrong, and Adam doesn't deserve this. This is who's wrong. He created that story. Now that he created that story, it doesn't matter how much evidence he sees that his story is wrong - because he's smart, he sees evidence that his story is wrong - it doesn't matter. Now that I've created this story, and in this story I deserve to be number one and I was removed unfairly, "I will not allow this story to break from my head. Everything I will do will be based on this story. I don't need the truth. I have my truth. My truth is more important than the truth."

So you can give me all the truth you want, it won't matter, because I already created my truth. He wants human beings to create - each of you, he wants you to create your truth. Each of you, your own truth, your own truth, your own truth. And then somebody comes along: "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it."

Look at Ya'qub alayhis salaam - he's a Prophet. Ya'qub alayhis salaam and his kids were Muslim, and he's giving da'wah to them for many years. Do they listen to him? His own Muslim kids didn't listen to him, and he's a Prophet. And all these years later, because they had a story in their head - in their story, who was wrong? Yusuf is wrong and Ya'qub is wrong. They're not wrong. So even years later they say إِنَّكَ لَفِي ضَلَالِكَ الْقَدِيمِ - "You're still confused, old man." Basically, that's what they're saying to him, because they cannot break their story. They will break the world to keep their story intact.

Conclusion and Warning

These are some of the small pieces of the personality of Iblis, and he wants you, he wants the people you love, he wants those people to take parts of this personality and poison their life. It's not enough for him to suffer. "If I fall, if I lost number one, I will make sure you lose it too. If all of us fail, that will satisfy me. I know I'm gonna burn anyway. I know I'm gonna burn. Now the only agenda I have left is I need to make sure you burn. It's the only thing that can satisfy me now."

May Allah protect us from the waswasa of Iblis. May Allah protect us from being those who - Allah says لَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ - "Don't fall into the footsteps of Shaytan." May Allah protect all of us from Shaytan. All of us can fall into his footsteps. You can take one step, or you can take a thousand steps. You can take ten thousand steps. But at any time, you can take a step back. If you've been following his footsteps for a long time, it doesn't matter. You can still, now that you recognize it, you can step back.

Or you can say, "You know what? My truth is more important than the truth," and you can even talk directly to Allah and say, "No, you're the one who's wrong. You made me from fire. You made him from clay." He's teaching Allah - like Allah doesn't know how he made someone. He's gonna educate Allah because he's now thinking that my truth is more powerful than anything else. May Allah protect us from that kind of arrogance.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.