Overview (Verses 30 - 31)

What happened after God issued His order to the angels to prostrate themselves before Adam? “Thereupon, the angels, one and all, prostrated themselves.” (Verse 30) That is in the nature of this aspect of God’s creation, the angels. They obey God’s orders whatever they are, without argument or delay. However, something else also took place at the same time: “Not so Iblīs, who refused to be among those who prostrated themselves.” (Verse 31)

Iblīs belongs to a different type of creation, separate from the angels. He is created out of fire while they are created out of light. They do not disobey God, whatever His command may be. He, on the other hand, disobeyed God, rejecting His command. For certain, then, he is not, and never was, one of the angels. That we have here a form of exception, more strongly pronounced in the Arabic text, refers to what is called in Arabic linguistics ‘inconsequential exception’. It is acceptable to say in Arabic: “The Joneses have come except for Ahmad”, when you know that Ahmad does not belong to the Jones family, but is always with them. Now since the order stated here has been issued to the angels, how could it apply to Iblīs? That the same order was issued to Iblīs is clearly stated in Sūrah 7, The Heights. There the order to Iblīs is mentioned in a later verse, when God questions him: “What has prevented you from prostrating yourself when I commanded you?” (7: 12) This is clear proof that Iblīs was given the same order. He might have been included in the order given to the angels, if he was with them at the time, or perhaps a separate order was issued to him. However, this is not mentioned here and this shows that he is of a far lesser position than the angels. Furthermore, the texts we have, and Satan’s own behaviour, all demonstrate that he was not one of the angels.

It should be also mentioned that we are dealing here with matters that belong to a different realm, and that we cannot fathom their nature or how they took place, except within the meaning of the texts we have. Neither human reason nor imagination has any role to play here.