2/34 — The prostration and Iblīs
"When We said to the angels, 'Prostrate yourselves to Adam', they all prostrated; except Iblīs. He refused, was arrogant, and became one of those who cover over."
There is wide agreement that this prostration is not a prostration of worship — because worship is offered to God alone, and it is He who commanded this. The classical explanations: prostration is a form of respect and greeting (bowing before an elder was a widespread expression of reverence in ancient societies); or Adam is a point of orientation to turn towards, and the prostration is to God.
In any case it is God who gives the command; obedience or rebellion is therefore directed at Him. What Iblīs refused is not Adam but the command.
أَبَىٰ (abā) — he refused, he would not come near. The act itself. ٱسْتَكْبَرَ (istakbara) — he was arrogant. The ground of the act.
The pattern of the second word matters. The istifʿāl form conveys wanting something or counting it so. Istikbār, that is, is not to be great but to count oneself great. The word itself says that arrogance is not a reality but a supposition.
The Qurʾān gives Iblīs's ground plainly elsewhere: "I am better than he; You created me from fire and created him from clay" (al-Aʿrāf 7/12).
The finding that follows is important: arrogance is born of a comparison. Iblīs makes no claim of value on his own account; he measures himself against another and comes out superior. Arrogance is not seeing oneself as high but seeing another as low; its measure is always someone else.
And the comparison itself is faulty: to compare fire with earth and declare fire superior is an assumption. Fire burns and consumes; earth carries and brings forth. Iblīs invented a hierarchy and put himself at the top of it.
This expression confirms the definition we set up in the sixth verse and offers a very clear example.
Iblīs does not deny the existence of God. On the contrary: he speaks with Him, hears His command, asks for respite until the day of resurrection, and his request is granted. He believes, that is, both in God and in the hereafter. He is not an "atheist" in the modern sense; theoretically there is nothing missing from his system of belief.
For all that, he is declared one who covers over. Because unbelief is not a lack of knowledge but the covering over of what is known — what is covered over here is the doing of what the truth he sees requires. Iblīs knows and refuses all the same.
This says something fundamental about the Qurʾān's understanding of faith: faith is not assent to a list of propositions. Iblīs assents to the whole list and still stands on the other side.
Is Iblīs an angel? The arrangement of the verse ("We said to the angels… except Iblīs") appears to count him among the angels, but the Qurʾān says plainly elsewhere: "He was of the jinn, and he departed from his Lord's command" (al-Kahf 18/50). The majority of exegetes, relying on the second verse, say that he was a jinn and that he fell within the scope of the command because he was present with the angels.