Surah 18. Al-Kahf, Ayah 50

Lit., "for the evildoers". As regards Satan's symbolic "rebellion" against God, see note [26] on 2:34 and note [31] on 15:41 .

This short reference to the oft-repeated allegory of God's command to the angels to "prostrate themselves before Adam" is meant, in the above context, to stress man's inborn faculty of conceptual thinking (see {2: 31-34} and the corresponding notes) and, thus, his ability and obligation to discern between right and wrong. Since man's deliberate choice of a morally wrong course - of which the preceding passages speak - is almost invariably due to his exaggerated attachment to the allurements of worldly life, attention is drawn here to the fact that this attachment is the means by which Satan (or Iblis) induces man to forgo all moral considerations and thus brings about his spiritual ruin.

Denoting, in this instance, the angels (see Appendix III).

Lit., "his offspring" - a metonym for all who follow him.

 See footnote for 2:34.

Cf. ii. 34, where the story is told of the fall of mankind through Adam. Here the point is referred to in order to bring home the individual responsibility of the erring soul. Iblis is your enemy; you have been told his history; will you prefer to go to him rather than to the merciful Allah, your Creator and Cherisher? What a false exchange you would make!'

Cf. vi. 100, n. 929.

Satan's progeny: we need not take the epithet only in a literal sense. All his followers are also his progeny.

Out of the limited free-will that man has, if he were to choose Evil instead of Good, Satan instead of Allah, what a dreadful choice it would be! It would really be an evil exchange. For man is Allah's creature, cared for and cherished by Him. He abandons his Cherisher to become the slave of his enemy!