Appearance
Is Iblīs a Jinn or an Angel?
وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لِآدَمَ فَسَجَدُوا إِلَّا إِبْلِيسَ أَبَىٰ وَاسْتَكْبَرَ وَكَانَ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ
And [mention] when We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate before Adam’; so they prostrated, except for Iblīs. He refused and was arrogant and was of the disbelievers. (2:34)
The question
Iblīs was commanded with the angels and is excepted from them. Was he one of the angels, or a jinn?
Views answered: Shaykh al-Ṭūsī · With: Shaykh al-Mufīd
Jawādī Āmulī’s argument
The widely accepted Imāmī view is that Iblīs is a jinn, and Shaykh al-Mufīd and others give proofs for it: the Qur’an says he was from the jinn (18:50); the jinn have rulings angels do not, such as offspring and being believers or disbelievers; and angels are infallible and messengers, while Iblīs disobeyed. Shaykh al-Ṭūsī reports these proofs and answers each. Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī finds his answers unworthy of so great an exegete and replies to them point by point: jinn and angels differ in essence; Iblīs’s offspring is in the Qur’an, not only in a solitary report; the angels’ infallibility in 21:26–27 covers them all; and 22:75 need not mean that only some angels are messengers.
Views compared
Shaykh al-Ṭūsī’s replies are given as al-Tasnim reports them. Each point opens al-Tasnim at that place.
He was from the jinn (18:50) Read →
Shaykh al-Ṭūsī
Was may mean “became”; or the jinn may be a group of angels, the keepers of Paradise, or named for being hidden.Jawādī Āmulī
Disobedience does not change an essence, and jinn and angels differ in essence.Iblīs’s offspring Read →
Shaykh al-Ṭūsī
His offspring rests on a solitary report; and God could have given one angel desire to make his duty harder.Jawādī Āmulī
His offspring is in the Qur’an: Do you take him and his offspring as allies? (18:50); one angel alone having such desire would break the angels’ unity of essence.The angels’ infallibility Read →
Shaykh al-Ṭūsī
66:6 speaks only of the keepers of the Fire.Jawādī Āmulī
Angels of higher rank are all the more infallible, and 21:26–27 speaks of all angels; the story of the angel Fiṭrus has no reliable chain.Are all angels messengers? Read →
Shaykh al-Ṭūsī
God chooses messengers from among the angels (22:75) means only some are messengers.Jawādī Āmulī
The first from may denote the kind, not a part; and 22:75 concerns the conveying of revelation, while 35:1 gives every angel a mission of its own.Reading guide
Each step opens al-Tasnim at that point.