Divinity to Iblis Before the Arrival of Mankind

It would be a mistake to see any of the Faces of Iblis as expressing a stance on the part of a living faith. Instead, something may be said for the converse view. That is, for a Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, or other religious person to act in an Iblisic manner is to prioritize their own religious caste. This prioritization of caste reflects the attitudes of Iblis before, during, and after his exile by divinity.

To understand the Iblisic narrative, we have to get a broad and analytical grasp of how Iblis may have viewed the divine preceding revelations by divinity to humanity. That is, to see the divine as Iblis saw it before any human prophets.

In an exercise of this incredible gift from nature called your imagination, allow your thoughts to race back in time, zipping through the rise and fall of civilizations, then on to before recorded history, and further back, before mankind.

And there was indeed a world before mankind. Imagine the patience that it would take for God or gods to sift through these painfully slow moving ages, waiting for a time it or they deigned appropriate to introduce conscious beings that would hold it or them in deserved regard. What would religion be like to his divine servants, such as angels. In the question we prosecute, here: what was religion to Iblis eons prior to the coming of Muhammad or before the birth of Christ himself.

Sacred texts, whether Christian, Islamic, or Hebrew, reveal little about the existence of possible scripture, traditions, or sacred practices. It is likely that religion, to Iblis, was painfully simple; interlayered into and with command hierarchy.

The following are likely fixtures of religion to Iblis before humanity:

1. Monotheism: The unity or singularity of the divine is the central feature of religion before religion. Much like the Parmenidean conception of being or reality, the divine, here, is uniform, contiguous, and entirely complete. It is not divided or dividable. It is serviced by agents that make direct intervention unnecessary.

i. The divine is single and uniform; there is one and only one divinity;

ii. The divine is not inclined to intervene; it has agents in its service;

iii. The divine is outside of space and time; unbound by human concepts.

2. Divine plan versus divine command: The divine plan is the overall scheme that is animated by the end goal of the divine. It is distinct from divine command, which is a specific order that serves part or all of the divine plan.

i. The divine plan is the end goal of divinity; all beings accord with it. It is generally understood by all divine servants without need of texts;

ii. The divine command is the/an order that is given at a specific time. It must be carried out without question or multiplied in its meanings;

iii. The divine plan is served by many divine orders at distinct times. In the absence of texts, as recorded by prophets, it is general knowledge.

3. A spiritual caste; narrating instead of praying: Instead of intergenerational means of relaying spiritual knowledge or revelations from the divine, the divine order, which for Iblis preceded the natural order, encompassed a caste in which multiple spiritual agents interacted directly with the divine. It was reciprocal. The divine answered questions instead of prayers and asked questions of his servants.

i. The divine order precedes and establishes the natural order; 

ii. In a caste system, Iblis was in a caste above some and below others;

iii. Instead of praying to the divine, servants either narrated what they were experiencing to the divine or else they asked or answered queries, acts that could take place at short or great distances. Following his act of disobedience, refusing to bow to Adam, Iblis discovered it was possible to be heard by the divine without further interaction. Iblis was the first to face what is often called "the silence of divinity." This would have been seen as purposive to the Obdurate Face, a painful test to the Illuminative Face, or with contempt by the Traditional Face.

The above is only a cursory glance of how religion before religion, as beheld and practiced by Iblis, might have existed and persisted.

Properly viewed, the Iblisic view and understanding of the divine comes from the narrational contexts of the experiences of Iblis. It would be erroneous to view the Iblisic view of divinity as being an appendage of Islamic theology or as an organ of its faith, or any other religious group for that matter. It makes no reference to the place accorded to humanity or its role in the divine plan.

On the other hand, the lifespan of Iblis, which precedes the creation of humanity by at least 700,000 years (in exegeses, Iblis served in each of the seven heavens for a period of at least 100,000 years each). This means that Iblis was a direct witness of events prior to and after mankind, including creative catastrophism, such as the formation of the Earth, and that of the natural order.

This makes Iblis a direct witness to events in natural history relevant to believers that are inclined to reject the opinions of Iblis himself. This is a form of vertical social exclusion; the divine orders and sanctions the exile of Iblis.