" I Think Now to Prostrate Myself to Man" (Iblees)

Allah, the Most Gracious, created man in the best physical stature and with a high gift of wisdom. With an honour and superiority over most of other creations man got the status of Allah’s viceroy on the earth. He had to implement the Will of Allah, the Exalted in Might, the Wise, on his own self and also had to make this earth a model of willful and voluntarily obedience to Allah, SWT. He was to create a system to make the face of earth a best place to live, full of peace, love not only for mankind but for mute living creatures. He had to create an atmosphere of cooperation in righteousness and rooting out the sin and aggression. He had the qualities in his nature for proving his merit of Allah’s favourite creation, but safeguarding these qualities was a tough thing for him.
When he proved his superiority in knowledge before Allah, over the angels and they were commanded to bow to man (Adam), Iblees, being jealous and lost in his ‘racial’ vainglory of having been created from fire, refused to bow to man (Adam). On getting rejected and cursed by Allah, his hatred mounted higher and higher. He pledged to exhaust all of his energies in misguiding man and use all of his wicked tricks to substantiate man’s unfitness for the purpose he was created for.

Now man’s condition of corruption, debauchery and viciousness and his moral and spiritual condition are beyond the expectations of Iblees. The poem impressed me to such an extent that it has been brought on the blog. It has a deep sarcastic smack, portraying the evils developed in man today. Steeling the poetic style of ‘Shikwah’ and ‘Jawab-e Shikwah’ of Iqbal and ‘ Musaddas’ of Altaf Hussain Haali, the poet used his imaginary to draw an ideological and moral picture of man and portraying exactly what majority of the children of Adam are now. Iblees addressing to Allah, SWT, says:

“When You created man and commanded me to bow to him I bitterly hated him, so I refused to obey Your Order. But now I see a great change has occurred. Such a great change of my choice that showing my likening now I want to prostrate myself before man. In the beginning man’s nature was soft and pure but now he has developed himself in much more mischievousness as compared to me.

“Every time the lava of vice keeps boiling in him. His every breath is a flam of ‘sharr’ (wickedness). His blood has got badly polluted and he has lost the sense of sanctity of his blood relations. On the day You commanded me to prostrate myself before him, he was only a stature of clay in my sight. But now he has grown my nature in his ‘self’ to so extent that I feel myself inferior to him.

Particularly as a politician, a leader and a ruler his foxiness is so high that I plan to remove my label of ‘Shaitaniat’ and enter this field following his footsteps. No day goes without his new devilish acts. He has invented unique things of immorality and innovated strange things as his beliefs. Now I have nothing to do for spoiling him. So I plan retirement from the job of ‘Ibleesiat’. Gone are the days when I was proud of my ‘Ibleesiat’ and used to hate him on being created from clay. Now he is on the stage above my expectations and I will have no objection to bow to him.”


A gist of an Urdu poem translated into English