Oxford University Press, 2002); Madawi al-Rasheed,
Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New
Generation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007); Itzchak Weismann, Taste of Modernity: Sufism,
Salafiyya, and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001).
salam See islam; pbuh.
salat See prayer.
samaa See music; qawwali.
Sanusi Sufi Order See libya; renewal and
reform movements.
Satan
In islam the devil is called both Satan (Arabic shay-
tan) and Iblis. These names occur in the qUran
and throughout Islamic religious literature. The
two names developed out of pre-Islamic beliefs
about evil beings and demons that circulated in
Middle Eastern Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian
communities. Zoroastrianism, which was the state
religion of iran prior to the Islamic conquests of
the seventh century, held that the universe was
locked in a struggle between two supreme beings
and their armies of angels and demons. The two
deities are Ahura Mazda (Lord Wisdom), the
benevolent creator god of goodness, light, and
knowledge, and Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), the god
of evil, darkness, and ignorance. At the end of time,
with human assistance, Angra Mainyu and his
minions would be defeated and goodness would
reign. Scholars think that the Zoroastrian idea of
an evil adversary of the good creator god may have
influenced the theologies of other religions in the
Middle East, including Judaism and Christianity.
The Hebrew word satan (accuser) occurs a
number of times in the Old Testament, usually in
reference to a human who acts as an adversary or
accuser (for example, 1 Samuel 29:4). It is in the
later books, however, that the word is used for a
supramundane being, particularly in Job 1–2 and
Zechariah 3. There he is depicted as an angelic
member of God’s heavenly court who raises accu-
sations against human beings because of their
sins. These books of the Hebrew Bible were writ-
ten between the sixth and fifth centuries b.c.e., at
the time of the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews
of the Kingdom of Judah (586–537 b.c.e.) and the
reign of Persian Achaemenid dynasty (648–330
b.c.e.). This dynasty supported Zoroastrianism and
allowed Babylonian Jews to return to JerUsalem
to rebuild their temple that the Babylonians had
destroyed in 586, providing an opportunity for
Zoroastrian beliefs to influence Jewish ones. The
association of Satan with the serpent in the story
of adam and eve does not occur in the Hebrew
Bible; this association was made in later Christian
writings. Satan as the enemy of God makes his
first appearance in the Christian New Testament
in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. These
writings identify him as a “tempter” (Matthew
4:3), “the prince of demons” (Matthew 12:24),
and “the evil one” (1 John 5:18). He is also called
the devil (diabolos accuser; for example, Matthew
4:1), which is the word used for Satan in the Sep-
tuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.
The Book of Revelation calls Satan the “ancient
serpent” and “the devil,” who will first be bound
by the angel of God for a thousand years, thrown
into hell for a thousand years, then released in the
last days before the Final Judgment (Rev. 20).
The two main stories involving Satan in the
Quran are the ones about his rebellion against
God and about his temptation of Adam and Eve
in paradise. In the first of these (related in Q 2:34;
7:11; 15:31; 17:61; 18:50; 20:116; 38:74), God
commands the angels to prostrate themselves to
Adam when he is created. Satan refuses, unlike
the others, and is expelled from paradise for
his disobedience. Now called an ungrateful dis-
believer (kafir), God allows him to become an
enemy and a deceiver of humanity until the JUdg-
ment day. The righteous, however, will be able
to successfully resist his efforts to misguide and
harm them. This story is not in the Bible, but aSatan 603 J