The Seven Precepts are derived from choices made by Iblis in the narrative.
In the First Rift, the divinity orders the entirety of the host to give humanity its proper homage or worship. The host obeys, with the exception of Iblis, who refuses to offer obeisance or prostration to Adam, representing mankind as a whole. [1a]
Refusing fealty or fidelity to humanity, Iblis cites form and material origins. [1b]
The First Precept exalts self in caste and spurns fealty to unlike caste. [1c]
[1a] Adam represents mankind as both a numeric set and a mereological whole. In refusing to bow to Adam, Iblis is not merely spurning fealty or fidelity to Adam, but to humanity considered in its entirety.
[1b] Form includes bodily shape and color while material origins includes composition and genealogy.
[1c] 'Caste' comes to us from casta; for our purposes, a caste is a group with a separate identity based on belief, bonds, or blood. Rejecting fealty or homage to an unlike caste is substratal and precedes claims of superiority, as in the Quranic account: "I am better than him." The latter arises relative to an interloper caste.
The Second Precept
Stringency as a Plenitude
In the Second Rift, Iblis is cursed and exiled by divinity for refusing obeisance or prostration to humanity, and he is named to signify his state. [2a]
Estranged from his polity, Iblis cheats death and steals time.
The Second Precept arraigns orders mistaken for overall plan, ranks intuitive wisdom over public approval, and extols vigilance of exile and death. [2b]
[2a] In various texts, Iblis is first known by the name of Azazil. He is given the name of Iblis ["despair"] to signify his condition and that of Satan ["adversary"] for his role as accuser.
[2b] The "order" is a command [homage to humanity] and rejecting it is compatible with the overall plan ["a role for all castes"]. Its consequence inclines to mindfulness of exile and death.
The Third Precept
Seedfulness in the Unfolding
In the Third Rift, Iblis hides in the mouth of a snake, reenters Paradise to preempt the exile of humanity, embarking on struggle across all times and places.
In this, Iblis assails the heir of submergence and unsolicited succession. [3a]
The Third Precept indicts mandates that erode divine or natural hierarchy, the latter as internal soil, scattering its seeds to nourish external worlds. [3b]
[3a] In the view of Iblis, humanity is undeservedly given stewardship over life on Earth.
[3b] The divine has issued an inappropriate command, subverting the traditional relationships between castes and imposing an unwelcome precedent on an emerging natural hierarchy. Struggling in Paradise and across the Earth to undermine the expanding family of humanity, Iblis takes the ripe seeds from the garden of Eden and scatters them across all times and places so as to harvest the primeval world.
[3b] The divine has issued an inappropriate command, subverting the traditional relationships between castes and imposing an unwelcome precedent on an emerging natural hierarchy. Struggling in Paradise and across the Earth to undermine the expanding family of humanity, Iblis takes the ripe seeds from the garden of Eden and scatters them across all times and places so as to harvest the primeval world.
IV.
The Fourth Precept
Strictness over the Terrene
The Fourth Precept
Strictness over the Terrene
In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis allows form to precede function, immediacy before distance, and the concrete before what we view as abstract.
In this, Iblis raises form and material origin above status or accomplishment.
The Fourth Precept lauds the ground and the material over intangibles. [4a]
[4a] Priority is given to material causes in expalining, depicting, or describing material processes, events, or entities. Immaterial cause is not necessarily outright rejected but has its own magisterium.
V.
The Fifth Precept
The Fifth Precept
Sagacious to the Proximal
In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis is always awake, forever sleeping with his third eye open, and is ever vigilant to fields about that are full of so many forms.
To inflict pain or death, Iblis may eat secrets and hide in what he is not. [5a]
The Fifth Precept is a capacity and willingness to undertake predation.
[5a] Recall Iblis concealing thoughts and motives in certain contexts and physically hiding himself in the snake, with the aid of the peacock, in order to reenter the spiritual abode concealed.
VI.
The Sixth Precept
The Sixth Precept
Sinewiness in its Offering
In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis maintains flexibility in relationships at the personal, familial, and tribal level of interactions and engagements.
In this, Iblis is adaptive to circumstance and novel interpolation.
In this, Iblis is adaptive to circumstance and novel interpolation.
If a man or a realm takes its mantle from Iblis, we find intensity of purveyance, a mouth that leads to a belly, and congeniality to time as an ally.
The Sixth Precept is malleability in personal and tribal affairs. [6a]
The Sixth Precept is malleability in personal and tribal affairs. [6a]
[6a] In spite of his acknowledged disdain for humanity, Iblis develops constructive relationships with certain of mankind. In certain texts, Iblis becomes a benefactor to Solomon, for instance.
The Seventh Precept
Severance from the Placeless
In this, Iblis measures worlds in relation to their primeval origins. [7a]
The Seventh Precept devalues worlds under faceless inundation. [7b]
[7a] Relating the present state of a world to its primordial conditions provides a means of viewing our present state in terms of future contingencies, as outgrowths of the now, among other things.
[7b] In refusing fealty or fidelity to Adam and in pursuing his progeny, Iblis recognizes that the command was really a demand for perpetual deference to mankind and acceptance of its unchecked expansion.
