The Seven Precepts

The Seven Precepts are based on choices made by Iblis in the narrative. These also function as commentaries on the principles in the Tafseer-e-Siddiqui.

I.

The First Precept
Separation as Provenance

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 either 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.

II.

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, and he is given the name Iblis ["to persist in despair"] to signify his condition. The name, Satan, is used to signify his adversarial role.

[2b] The "order" is a command [homage to humanity]. Iblis instinctively rejects the order, an act that is congruent with the overall plan [a role and place for all castes]. The intertwining of these issues inclines to mindfulness of exile and death. The proper approach to these notions recalls facets of ancient Stoicism.

III.
The Third Precept
Seedfulness across Worlds

In the Third Rift, Iblis embarks on his struggle to vindicate his view of humanity and his rejection of its role as steward. Iblis preempts the exile of mankind from Eden and follows by trying to barricade it from future real or possible worlds.

In this, Iblis opposes 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 other words, Iblis refuses to accept a subordinate role to humanity, either for himself or for his caste, and rejects having his caste, its role and duties, submerged under mankind.

[3b] Iblis contends that the divine has issued an inappropriate command, as it undermines the traditional relations between castes and establishes an unwelcome precedent for the emerging natural hierarchy. Iblis takes the latent fruits of the internal soil, the seeds of the primeval world, and then embarks on an effort to scatter them anew over and across actual or potential worlds.

IV.
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.

V.
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.

The Fifth Precept is a capacity and willingness to undertake predation.

VI.
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, we bear witness to Iblis being adaptive to circumstance.

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.

VII.

The Seventh Precept

Severance from the Placeless

In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis contends that the proliferation of humanity across material and spiritual worlds can only engender false admiration.

In this, Iblis measures worlds in relation to their primeval origins.

The Seventh Precept devalues worlds under faceless inundation.