The Ten Requests, Once More

Asked what he had requested of Allah on the day of his rejection, and what had been granted him, Shayṭān once more set out his ten requests, reciting now the very verse that proves the first of them:

I asked Allah, he said, to make me a partner in the wealth and the children of the children of Adam — in their work, their property and their families — and He granted it, exactly as the verse gives: excite with your voice whoever of them you are able, rally against them your horse and your foot, and share with them in wealth and children.

Second, he said, he shares in whatever meat is eaten without the basmalah said over it. On this there is a hadith: a man once sat to eat without saying the basmalah, and the Messenger of Allah told him to say it. I forgot, the man answered. Say it now, he was told — say bismillāhi awwalahu wa-ākhirahu, in the name of Allah at its beginning and its end. The moment he said it, Shayṭān, who had been eating alongside him because the basmalah had been left out, was made to vomit out everything he had taken, as though some switch had been thrown.

So it is with an animal slaughtered deliberately without the basmalah being said over it — the obligation, already set out among these fifty-four, that everything eaten and drunk must be lawfully obtained, applies here too. He is likewise a shareholder, he said, in property obtained through interest, injustice or tyranny; a shareholder in the wealth of anyone who does not seek refuge in Allah from him; something of a father to a child conceived without the basmalah being said; and a travelling companion of anyone journeying by any means — horse, donkey or car — toward an unlawful destination: ride out in a fine car toward some forbidden place, and Shayṭān rides along without difficulty.

He asked Allah for a house, and was given the public baths; for a temple to worship in, and was given the marketplace; for a book, and was given the books of poetry; for a call to prayer of his own, and was given music and dancing instead; for someone to share his bed, and was given the drunkard; for helpers, and was given those who deny divine decree; for brothers and sisters, and was given the squanderers who spend their wealth on evil — for Allah has said that the squanderers are the brothers of the devils. He asked, further, to see the children of Adam while remaining unseen by them, and this too was granted; and he asked that the very veins of Adam's children become his own pathways, so that he might flow within their flesh as he wished, and this also was given him. I am proud, he said, of all I have received, and until the Day of Resurrection there will be more with me among human beings than there will ever be with you. This is true: less than a fifth of the world's population is Muslim, and of that fifth a great many are Muslim in name alone — may Allah help the believers of this age. The Messenger of Allah told him: had you not supported everything you say with the very verses of Allah's own Book, it would have been hard to accept a word of it from you — but what you have said is all true.