The True Servants of Allah

Having heard these answers about his companions and about his people, the Messenger of Allah praised Allah, saying: praise belongs to Allah, who has blessed my people with such felicity, and cursed you with such wretchedness, until the appointed time. On hearing this, Shayṭān said: alas, alas for you — what felicity is this you speak of? How can you imagine there is safety for them as long as I exist? I enter their very veins, their very flesh, and they cannot so much as suspect it, let alone see or feel me. I swear, by the One who has given me respite until the Day of Resurrection, that I will seduce them all — the intelligent and the simple, the learned and the ignorant, the devout and the sinner. None will be safe from me except the true servants of Allah.

The Messenger of Allah asked: and who, according to you, are the true servants of Allah? Shayṭān answered: you know well, O Muḥammad, that whoever loves his money and his property, Allah does not count among His servants. Whenever I see someone who does not constantly say "mine" and "me" — anā, as he put it, the sickness of the commanding self — who does not love either money or flattery, I know that person to be a true servant of Allah, and I flee from him; I have no hope with him. But as long as a person loves money, property and flattery, he obeys me, and he is my servant.