It does make me wonder what is actually meant by the term "Great Satan." Is it not as bad as it sounds?

No, it is that bad. All you have to do is watch the body l;anguage and note the context, and you can tell that.

Despite these stories about Satan, recall also the recent incident in Mecca, illustrated in classically humourous fashion by Scrappleface.

Within religions, it is not uncommon to have different views on Satan. Kabbalist Jews see Satan in a more malevolent aspect, for instance. Anyone else have some thoughts that would help clarify the Islamic side?

...And more to the point, back to the question. Given the characterization here, is this representation of Satan one that describes a good guy, a bad guy, or something in between?

I think it represents the skitz nature of Islam, myself. The mix of Judeo-Christian theology(of apparent Syriac Christian origin) with Arab polytheism. An angel who supposedly loves "Allah", but does things that hurts humanity. Sounds like he is mentally ill, to me, consistent with some of the other aspects of the religion. The Muslim attitude toward wrongdoing is different from the Judeo-Christian one, and it shows from this.

He sounds like a Trickster figure.

Sounds confused to me. All he has to do is that which God asked of him and he'd get back into God's good graces. But no, he's gotta be stubborn. So pride keeps him on the outs.

Many Sufis (based on the above rationale) see Satan as the true monotheist. Certainly the arguments of Fadiman are difficult to refute in an Islamic sense.

The confusion begins when an Islamic motif is interpreted through another filter whether it be a Jewish, Christian or atheistic one. For instance the image of Satan as personified in say Mephistopheles or as the architect of all evil does not come from Islam. The idea that God could have an equal (Satan) or be opposed by an equal force (evil) is a heretical one in Islam as nothing can happen that is not the will of God. In the story Satan is merely accepting this - of course it could be argued that he is not accepting God's will by refusing the command but he has a higher principle: knowledge. Thus it is really a story about knowledge and belief with Satan playing the 'Sufi' role.

On another level, it has much in common with the story of Job and Abraham if we actually get past the 'Satan' imagery and question our biases and preconceptions - and after all, isn't that the purpose of Sufi stories, to enable us to do this ?

Satan is often spoken of as the "misleader", who leads you down the wrong path out of malice. I think this conception is pretty central to the "Great Satan" idea - America misleads the believers with its culture, its secularism, its non-Islamic values, its general attractiveness...

If I'm not mistaken, Satan has only recently (the last thousand years anyway) come to embody a number of demonic characters rolled into one. The original Satan was a (apparantly valued) member of Gods court, and according to the book of Job actually seemed to have a friendship with God. His roll was that of the accuser, which didnt necessarilly make him evil in a overarching sense, but would certainly appear so from the human pov. I believe satan can be rendered in Greek as 'an accuser', and is actually used in the more general form in the bible (as in 'be gone from me you satan!')
Later Satan was rolled together with Lucifer the fallen angel, the serpent from the garden, and any number of other angels and devils. I always found the accuser version more interesting. In a lot of ways he is the prototypical human, demanding questions of god which would not exist if faith was perfect.

Depends on who you ask and which version of theology you're likely to follow.

"If I'm not mistaken, Satan has only recently (the last thousand years anyway) come to embody a number of demonic characters rolled into one."

The issue at hand is whether one is dealing with the same entity or multiple conceptions of the personification of evil. Names and conceptions of evil like Belial, Sammael, ect. go back at least as far as the Babylonian Exile, if not beforehand - I believe there's a line in Judges in which some nasty folks are referred to as the "Sons of Belial" or some such things. There is also a reference in Leviticus to 2 sacrificial goats being prepared, one for God and the other for Azazel, who turns up later in various apocryphal writings like 1 Enoch as quite a nasty character.

In any case, the patristic writings as well as the Dead Sea scrolls (particularly the War Scroll) make it pretty clear that there was a definite conception of an evil being by roughly the time of Jesus if not beforehand.

"The original Satan was a (apparantly valued) member of Gods court, and according to the book of Job actually seemed to have a friendship with God."

Depends on how you read the beginning of Job. He shows up with the rest of the Bene Elohim (the angels) but is distinguished from them as ha-Satanas or "the Enemy." His exact relationship with God isn't fleshed out too much in the Job dialogue, but he seems to have a fairly contemptuous regard for humanity.

"His roll was that of the accuser, which didnt necessarilly make him evil in a overarching sense, but would certainly appear so from the human pov."

He seemed to take a certain kind of delight in inflicting a great deal of misery on Job ranging from natural and supernatural disasters to manipulating human flunkies to do his dirty work for him. It would seem to reason, just from the personification in Job, that he seems to be behind a lot of the bad stuff that happens to regular people if one considers the nature of the book's theodicy.

"I believe satan can be rendered in Greek as 'an accuser', and is actually used in the more general form in the bible (as in 'be gone from me you satan!')"

Satan comes from a Hebrew word, satanas, that more or less means "Adversary." It can refer to the position of the prosecutor in the court of law, though I would generally hold (given what all Satan does in Job) that it should be taken in a more general sense.

What you're probably thinking about here is the Greek diabolus (which we translate as "devil"), which means "slanderer."

"Later Satan was rolled together with Lucifer the fallen angel, the serpent from the garden, and any number of other angels and devils."

The patristic writings (and they may have been influenced by Jewish demonology here) identified Satan with the individual described in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. The identification of Satan with the serpent in the garden comes from Revelation in the Christian canon.

One other point I would note is that while I am not a Muslim my understanding the Koranic passage refers to Iblis refusing to bow before Adam not out of any regard for Allah but rather out of contempt for bowing down to one who had been made of clay (Iblis is a djinn, not an angel in Islam, and as such was composed of fire).

"Said God let praise be to Him: And when We said unto the angels: Prostrate yourselves before Adam, they fell prostrate, all save Iblis. He demurred through pride, and so became a disbeliever (Al-Baqarah: 34). And in another position He said to Iblis blaming him for not prostrating: He said: What hindered thee that thou didst not fall prostrate when I bade thee? (Al-A'raf: 12). The damned said then: I am better than him. Thou createdst me of fire while him Thou didst create of mud, and continued: Now, because Thou hast sent me astray, verily I shall lurk in ambush for them on Thy Right Path, then I shall come upon them from before them and from behind them and from their right hands and from their left hands, and Thou wilt not find most of them beholden (unto Thee). And also said: Reprieve me till the day when they are raised (from the dead). and God answered: Then lo! thou art of those reprieved Till the Day of appointed time. And God said also: and they fell prostrate, all save Iblis. He was of the jinn, so he rebelled against his Lord's command."

Here again, that is only my own interpretation from this, one would do far better to get a Muslim opinion.

To say that "Christianity sees Satan" and "Judaism sees Satan" in one way or another is not accurate.

The person who wrote the essay on Judaism and Satan represents a particular strand of ultra-orthodox Judaism. Moreover, there is an underlying anti-Christian polemic in his essay, which is unnecessary to his argument.

I write this only because its important to consider the source when we explore these issues. It might have been better to write that "one Christian perspective on Satan is..." or "one perspective from orthodox Judaism describes Satan as...."

The perspective in this essay is generally applicable across reform and conservative Judaism as well.

As for the anti-Christian polemic, I must have missed something. Unless Willy Wonka (who was used brilliantly, I thought) is somehow an anti-Christian figure... ?

I do agree that the perspective is consistent with those of other streams of Judaism. That doesn't mean that it's okay to essentialize Judaism by writing "Judaism sees..."

As far as the anti-Christian polemic, I think it's pretty clear in the very first line: "The Christians don't understand how an angel of G-d can try to seduce people to disobey G-d, so they came to the unsupported conclusion that Satan must have rebelled against G-d." And it's repeated here: "Satan is not, as the Christians think, a rebellious angel. How impossible!"

Shawn, of course he's going to say that - his religion disagrees! Mainstream Judaism does in fact see the very idea of a rebellious angel as utterly impossible.

Likewise, see Mark Shea's post linked above, which takes a Catholic perspective. Same theme: "what the other side is missing is...."

That isn't anti-Christian or anti-Jewish, just description and contrast of their core cosmological positions. It's healthy discussion, based in a coherent and different perspective.

Joe, I just have to disagree. There's a difference between saying, as you do, that its a matter of disagreement or difference, an saying that another group's members "don't understand." The former is healthy discussion; the latter is polemic.

The moment one writes that "Group X simply doesn't understand the Truth," one implicitly is saying, they're wrong and we're right. In matters of religious debate, I submit, it is far preferable to write, "Group X and Group Y don't see things in the same way. Group X believes...; on the other hand, we believe..."

Semantics? Yes. Important to maintaining a healthy civil society based on mutual respect and healthy debate? Also yes.

Shawn, with respect, you seem to be caught in the trap of some particularly foolish modern ideas which look down on any claims to truth, and believe they are ipso facto offensive.

But religion is about absolutes - and about truth. If a Christian says to me, as a Jew, that Jesus' divinity is just a matter of belief, he isn't being polite... he's being "not a Christian." If he's serious, he HAS to say that we Jews have that wrong.

Now, my imaginary Christian friend may be openhearted, and ascknowledge our right to have that wrong and still be good people. He may be very inclusive, and say that Jews have their own direct covenant with G-d. Both of those are very civil. But asking him to say that Jesus is a matter of opinion, or "we believe X, they believe Y" is asking him to give up his religion's claim to truth.

Sine qua, non.

Personally, I believe that it's both damaging and wrong to ask that of people. I can ask for civility. I can demand freedom of belief. But that includes the freedom of others to proclaim the truth of their beliefs, or it means nothing.

Joe, when you put it like that I think I have to agree with you. I will say that I am sick of rabbis (and others) treating Christianity like some misshapen stepsister of Judaism, and not as a faith tradition in its own right.

But that doesn't mean that we Jews shouldn't give up our truth claims (incidentally, for most in our tradition those truth claims, with the exception of the 7 Noahide laws, apply solely to Jews), nor does it mean that Christians should give up their truth claims.

I have no problem with Christians trying to convert me. But my response is not to say, "You're reading the Bible wrong" - as many Jews respond. Rather, I insist on the validity (and yes, truth) of the Sinaitic Covenant between G-d and the Jewish peopl. Christians can read the Bible however they wish.

I'm no supporter of relativism. But I do think we have to allow faith traditions to stand or fall on their own terms. If Jews were actively competing with Christians for converts (which sadly, we're not), then yes, we might like to that our reading of the Hebrew Scriptures is superior. But that's not the case, and I leave it to our Christian and Muslim friends in the Global South to work out how interreligious debate can take place in a civil way.

B'shalom.

A little late to the game here, as I had nothing to add until now...

"a subtle reasoner, a scholastic theologian, a phrasemongering jurist." This latter view is again and again insisted upon by the Sufis: "Seek the real Satan in the scholastic sophist, or the hairsplitting doctor -- for he is the opposite of Truth."

Here, Satan seems to be neither the everlasting enemy of Man and personification of supernatural evil of Christianity, nor the lead prosecutor of Judaism, nor the main character of Islam's cautionary tale. Instead, he is the personification of the evil inherent in behavior which destroys the Truth. In this case, capital-T Truth is knowledge of/communion with the divine. Satan personifies that which interferes with this knowledge/communion, such as the religious leader who perverts the religion's message to serve his own worldly ends, or the practitioner of a faith who focuses exclusively on the finer points of obedience (and imposing that obedience on others), losing sight of the religion's substance in his obsession with its form. This is clearly echoed in the tale of Rabia.

In keeping with the multi-layered aspect of Sufi teachings, this image of Satan applies just as handily to small-t truth -- that is, the worldly knowledge of right and wrong, fact from lie. For worldly evil to succeed, knowledge of or access to the truth must first be diminished...thus the use of propaganda to control the interpretation of facts, innuendo and "criticism" to dispute the validity of what are claimed to be facts, and relativism to undermine the very validity of facts as a concept.

Satan is identified by Jesus as a liar and the "father of lies". This is an important identification. The first sin (an action based on a lie) was a result of a lie people told themselves with the encouragement of the liar. A lie is a representation of somethng that is not real.

If there were no lies, there would be no confusion, fear, etc.

The father of lies doesn't have to be our personal adversary; his children are are doing a fine job. Lies were seeded in people and use them like a parasite. Lies give birth to new lies. (If the eye that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness?)If Satan was the father of lies and lies are false information, then Satan is spirit in the way that information is spirit. Before matter existed there could be no lies, but once matter made it possible to tranfer information, wrong patterns of information could be advanced.

That is what people search for on earth. It doesn't help if they believe it can't be found (relativism, blind leaders of the blind).

G.M.