Satan

In the Quran, Iblis is an evil entity (shaitan) made of fire who was cast out of Heaven because he refused to bow before the newly created Adam and incites humans to sin by infecting their minds with waswās ('evil suggestions').

During the intertestamental period, possibly due to influence from the Zoroastrian figure of Angra Mainyu, the satan developed into a malevolent entity with abhorrent qualities in dualistic opposition to God.

In the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, Yahweh grants the satan (referred to as Mastema) authority over a group of fallen angels, or their offspring, to tempt humans to sin and punish them.

Satan's appearance is never described in the Bible, but, since the ninth century, he has often been shown in Christian art with horns, cloven hooves, unusually hairy legs, and a tail, often naked and holding a pitchfork.

[38] The Book of Enoch, which the Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed to have been nearly as popular as the Torah,[39] describes a group of 200 angels known as the "Watchers", who are assigned to supervise the earth, but instead abandon their duties and have sexual intercourse with human women.

[62] Another passage relates that Satan once kissed the feet of Aha bar Jacob for having taught his students that his objectionable actions are done only to serve the intents of God.

[63] Rabbinical scholarship on the Book of Job generally follows the Talmud and Maimonides in identifying "the satan" from the prologue as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and not an actual entity.

[69] In Reform Judaism, Satan is generally seen in his Talmudic role as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and the symbolic representation of innate human qualities such as selfishness.

[108] The first recorded individual to identify Satan with the serpent from the Garden of Eden was the second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr,[115][116] in chapters 45 and 79 of his Dialogue with Trypho.

[125] He concluded that Isaiah 14:12 is an allegory for Satan and that Ezekiel 28:12–15 is an allusion to "a certain Angel who had received the office of governing the nation of the Tyrians", but was hurled down to Earth after he was found to be corrupt.

[128] According to Henry Ansgar Kelly, Origen seems to have adopted this new interpretation to refute unnamed persons who, perhaps under the influence of Zoroastrian radical dualism, believed "that Satan's original nature was Darkness.

"[129] The later Church Father Jerome (c. 347 – 420), translator of the Latin Vulgate, accepted Origen's theory of Satan as a fallen angel[130] and wrote about it in his commentary on the Book of Isaiah.

[154][153] In 1326, Pope John XXII issued the papal bull Super illius Specula,[155] which condemned folk divination practices as consultation with Satan.

[155][156] The German Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger argued in their book Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1487, that all maleficia ("sorcery") was rooted in the work of Satan.

[160][161] In the late 1500s, the Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer argued in his treatise De praestigiis daemonum that witchcraft did not exist,[162] but that Satan promoted belief in it to lead Christians astray.

[169] By the early 1600s, skeptics in Europe, including the English author Reginald Scot and the Anglican bishop John Bancroft, had begun to criticize the belief that demons still had the power to possess people.

[172] Voltaire labelled John Milton's Paradise Lost a "disgusting fantasy"[172] and declared that belief in Hell and Satan were among the many lies propagated by the Catholic Church to keep humanity enslaved.

The word itself is an adjective (meaning "astray" or "distant", sometimes translated as "devil") that can be applied to both man ("al-ins", الإنس) and al-jinn (الجن), but it is also used in reference to Satan in particular.

[185] This, combined with the fact that he describes himself as having been made from fire, posed a major problem for Muslim exegetes of the Quran,[185] who disagree on whether Satan is a fallen angel or the leader of a group of evil jinn.

[198] Abu Mansur al-Maturidi who is reverred as the founder of Maturidiyyah Sunni orthodoxy (kalam) argued that since angels can be blessed by God, they are also put to a test and can be punished.

[199] The Tarikh Khamis narrates that Satan was a jinn who was admitted into Paradise as a reward for his righteousness and, unlike the angels, was given the choice to obey or disobey God.

"[217] The thirteenth-century scholar Sibt ibn al-Jawzi states that, when Jesus asked him what truly broke his back, Satan replied, "The neighing of horses in the cause of Allah.

"[226][227] All other evil spirits described in various faith traditions—such as fallen angels, demons, and jinns—are also metaphors for the base character traits a human being may acquire and manifest when he turns away from God.

In this religion, "Satan" is not viewed or depicted as a hubristic, irrational, and fraudulent creature, but rather is revered with Prometheus-like attributes, symbolizing liberty and individual empowerment.

The reality behind Satan is simply the dark evolutionary force of entropy that permeates all of nature and provides the drive for survival and propagation inherent in all living things.

[238] The main deity in the tentatively Indo-European pantheon of the Yazidis, Melek Taus, is similar to the devil in Christian and Islamic traditions, as he refused to bow down before humanity.

[239][240] However, rather than being Satanic, Yazidism can be understood as a remnant of a pre-Islamic Middle Eastern Indo-European religion, and/or a ghulat Sufi movement founded by Shaykh Adi.

[275] Depictions of the devil became more common in the ninth century,[276][277] where he is shown with cloven hooves, hairy legs, the tail of a goat, pointed ears, a beard, a flat nose, and a set of horns.

[272] The goat-like portrayal of Satan was especially closely associated with him in his role as the object of worship by sorcerers[280] and as the incubus, a demon believed to rape human women in their sleep.

[280] Italian frescoes from the late Middle Ages onward frequently show Satan chained in Hell, feeding on the bodies of the perpetually damned.