The Seven Precepts

These are based on aspects of the narrative discussed 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]

Rejecting deference to humanity, Iblis evokes 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. Refusing reverence for an unlike caste is substratal and it 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 named to signify his state.

Estranged from his polity, Iblis cheats death and steals time.

The Second Precept arraigns orders misconstrued as will, public acclaim below intuitive wisdom, and espouses vigilance over exile and death.

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. First, Iblis preempts its exile from Eden. Second, Iblis acts to barricade humanity from entry into real or possible worlds.

In this, Iblis opposes his submergence and unsolicited succession.

The Third Precept indicts mandates that erode divine or natural hierarchy, the latter as internal soil, scattering its seeds to nourish external worlds.

IV.
The Fourth Precept
Strictness over the Terrene

In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis enshrines material cause while refraining from denying spirit, places structure above function, and origin before role.

The Fourth Precept adores the ground, regards what is concrete above what is abstract, near before distant, and lifts the material over intangibles.

V.
The Fifth Precept

Sagacious to the Proximal

In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis acknowledges hunger, walks as if asleep, but all the while remains vigilant to the 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 the 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.

If a man or a realm takes his 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 it lies a regard for worlds as they have or might have been.

The Seventh Precept devalues the faceless inundation of worlds.