Al-Israa (The Night Journey)

62. “He (the Satan) said: ‘Tell me, is this he whom you have honoured above me? If You respite me till the Day of Resurrection, I will certainly master his progeny, save a few.”

When the Satan noticed that, as a consequence of his arrogance and unruliness in face of the Lord’s command, he has become an outcast from the Lord’s holy sanctuary for ever, said humbly:

Were I to be given a respite till the resurrection day by You, I shall seduce all the progenitors of this human being, make them perish altogether starting from the scratch, seducing them all except a few of them.

The verse says:

“He (the Satan) said: ‘Tell me, is this he whom you have honoured above me? If You respite me till the Day of Resurrection, I will certainly master his progeny, save a few.” The Arabic term /’ahtanikanna/ which is derived from the term /’ihtin ak/ means ‘eradicating’ something or ‘uprooting’. Thus, when locusts perish an entire agricultural land, the Arabs say: “locusts eradicated the farming.” This Qur’anic expression, therefore, refers to the point that: I will uproot all of the children of Adam from the path of obedience, except a few of them.

There is the possibility that the Arabic term /’ihtanikanna/ is a derivation of /hanak/, meaning: ‘beneath the throat’.

When the rope or the bridle is placed around the neck of an animal, the Arabs often use the expression /hanatk-ad-dabbah/, meaning that ‘the animal was bridled’. In fact, the Satan wants to claim that he will put the bridle of temptation around the neck of all human beings thus leading them toward the wrong path.