You may ask: did the devil’s influence touch our master Job (pth)?
This concerns the following verse: “Remember when our true obedient Job called upon his Provider, saying: ‘Satan touched me with fatigue and torture’.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 38, Sâd (the Letter, S = True), verse 41
Certain devilish explanations of this verse are often relayed in books claiming to interpret the Holy Qur’an. They suggest that our master Job (pth), God’s prophet and His messenger, was touched by the devil, who controlled his body, his properties, and his wife. These explanations claim that his people threw him on a dunghill where the animals quarreled over his holy body; moreover, they insinuate that he was afflicted with infectious diseases.
They contended that all of this was fulfilled through collusion between Al’lah and the devil against His noble messenger, so that He debased him unjustly, in a way that was unprecedented, without his committing a sin (far be it for Him).
Since it is impossible for the devil to have authority over a believer, how would it be possible for him to approach a prophet and messenger? God, the Great and the Almighty, says, in a clear verse: “He has no authority over those who have always believed and trusted in their Provider.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 16, An-Nahl (The Bees), verse 99
Indeed, the devil himself realized this, as is shown by the following: “He (the devil) said: ‘Oh my Provider, since You have led me astray, I will adorn to them (humanity) this lower life on earth and seduce them all, except Your pure chosen obedient followers.’
“He (God) said to the devil: ‘This is the straight course for Me: you shall have no power over My obedient followers except those who follow you and are deceived by this lower life.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 15, Al-Hijr (Stone Buildings), verse 39-42
We can see that God’s law is exactly the opposite of those false interpretations of the Holy Qur’an, and states: “…Al’lah gives His messengers authority over whom He wills…”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 59, Al-Hashr (Creation-Gathering), verse 6
In fact, the summary of our master Job’s tale (pth) is as follows: our master Job (pth) is one of the examples for us provided by Al’lah in the Holy Qur’an. He is an example of how to be resolute and patient as regards the mission of God, and also of how to be merciful to people. This noble messenger asked and invited his people to believe in God, and in the beginning he met nothing but stubbornness and shunning of what is right, and did not realize the fruits of his efforts. As a result, he felt much pain from this, and found great distress, sadness, and regret in his spirit.
This messenger, in his pain and sorrow for his people, was like a father with a son who suffers from an incurable disease that is destroying his body, but the father can find no way to save him from the claws of this disease. We wonder how great is this father’s pain, and how much distress and sorrow he feels whenever he looks at his son.
The state of this noble messenger (pth) in relation to his people was similar to this, and this is referred to in the Holy Qur’an, wherein God says: “Job called upon his Provider, saying: ‘I was sorely afflicted. You are the Most Compassionate of those who show mercy’.”: that is: remember our true obedient Job in his compassion and feelings of pain for his people, that were revealed in the face of the rejection and severe opposition he had met from them.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 21, Al-Anbiya’ (The Prophets), verse 83
We repeat again: “Job called upon his Provider: ‘I was sorely afflicted’…”: meaning ‘harmed’; that is, the distress and the grief that he suffered from, and the sadness and regret that he found for his people in his spirit led him to call upon God, asking Him to dispel this distress from him by guiding his people to the right path. “…‘You are the Most Compassionate of those who show mercy’.”: here, Job asks his Provider to have mercy upon him by guiding his people, for this was the means for him to achieve his spirit’s salvation, and its recovery from the spiritual torture and pain from which it suffered because of his people’s lack of belief.
God the Almighty responded to His messenger’s call after he had borne so much so patiently without being importunate with his Provider, and without reaching a state of desperation in seeking to guide his people. He expressed his grief and sorrow to none but Al’lah, and so He guided him to the way that would rescue his people, as referred to in the noble verse: “We heard his prayer and relieved his affliction when We granted him his people and as many more with them, rightly guided in compassion from Us and as an admonition to the guides.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 21, Al-Anbiya’ (The Prophets), verse 84
So, Al’lah relieved his affliction, and dispelled the distress that had afflicted him, so that his people – along with more people equal to them in number – came to believe in God, due to the compassion of Al’lah for this noble messenger and his people.
“…and as an admonition to the guides.”: that is, as a reminder for those who are truly obedient to Al’lah and who shoulder the guidance of people to God, the Creator. This reminder will let them know that whatever opposition and distress they face, Al’lah will certainly relieve them and send goodness through their hands, and a good outcome comes for those who see by God’s light. This tale, which has been summarized in the two previous verses, was mentioned in detail in other verses by God, wherein He has shown us the way that He ordered His messenger to follow in order to achieve the successful guidance of his people. He says: “Remember Our true obedient Job when he called on his Provider, saying that ‘Satan touched me with fatigue and torture’.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 38, Sâd (the Letter, S = True), verse 41
To understand what is meant by the words: “Satan touched me”, we say: the word ‘touch’ mentioned in the Holy Qur’an – which is the word ‘mass’ in the Arabic language – indicates only the immaterial meaning; that is, ‘touch’ in the spiritual sense and not the physical sense. If it was intended to refer to a physical touch, as is falsely contended concerning this noble messenger, the word in the original Arabic of the Qur’an would be ‘lamas’ rather than ‘mass’.
God says: “Those who live on usury will rise up before Al’lah like he whom Satan has caused to welter, distracted by his touch…”: that is: Satan destroys and overcomes such a person spiritually.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 2, Al-Baqara (The Cow), verse 275
Does the devil appear to man physically or spiritually?! Of course he comes only through his spirit. God says: “Truly, it is a Holy (Glorious) Qur’an, hidden inside a book. None can touch it except the purified ones.”: that is, only those who are purified (i.e. those who communicate with Al’lah and enter into His Presence, where He purifies their spirits) can touch the lofty meanings that are folded within the Qur’an, and thus understand its realities. So, the meanings are immaterial; they are not handled physically but imprinted on the hearts; moreover, the material copy of the Holy Qur’an can be physically carried by both the disbeliever who is a sinner and by the believer: by both the pure and the impure. They can all carry it equally, and thus touch it physically, but not everyone can touch the Qur’an in the spiritual sense. The disbeliever may be able to touch its material form, but cannot touch its meaning.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 56, Al-Waqi’a (The Inevitable Event), verse 77-79
And, from God’s saying: “If those who see by God’s light are touched by a passing shade of the devil, they will remember Al’lah, and then they will discern the truth.” Such a shade is not handled intuitively.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 7, Al-A’raf (The Heights), verse 201
We also mention here the word ‘touched’,[44] which is ‘mamsoos’ in Arabic, and means ‘the insane one’. It is derived from the Arabic word ‘mass’ referred to above.
So, this touching was spiritual and immaterial, and the damage that afflicted our master Job (pth) was spiritual grief and sorrow, as we have mentioned, and not physical, bodily damage as it has been claimed.
The devil can never affect what is material. For example, whatever food you leave behind, no bite will be taken from it by a devil, even if all the devils on earth were to gather in that place. The devil comes only through his spirit which has been released from his body, but he did not dare to approach God’s messenger Job (pth). God says: “I did not seek the aid of those who were to lead humanity astray.”: it would be impossible for Al’lah to collaborate and collude with the devil against His prophet and messenger Job (pth) as they slyly pretended, and there should be no dispute about that which is clearly worded in the Holy Qur’an.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 18, Al-Kahf (The Cave), verse 51
God the Almighty clarified to us how our master Job (pth) was afflicted with this harm spiritually, not physically, in His saying: “Remember Our true obedient Job when he called upon his Provider, saying that: ‘Satan touched me with fatigue and torture.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 38, Sâd (the Letter, S = True), verse 41
By the words “…Satan touched me…”: it is meant that Job was afflicted by Satan because of what he whispered in the spirits of his people, and “…with fatigue…”: means toil and exhaustion, for as soon as his people leave his house, after he has offered them the proof and evidence to persuade them, Satan comes to them with his whispering temptation and causes suspicion about what Job has revealed to them. Had they followed his guidance and believed, they would not have been frustrated by the devil.
As for the word “…torture…” it refers to the spiritual pain that this noble messenger felt on behalf of these misguided people, due to his compassion and tenderness for them.
The fatigue and the torture which he suffered were because of what the devil had whispered in the spirits of his people. God says to Mohammad (cpth) in the Holy Qur’an: “Say, ‘I proudly seek refuge in the Provider of oblivious humankind, the Possessor of oblivious humankind, the Steering God of oblivious humankind from the evil of the sneaking whisperer, who whispers evil in the chests of oblivious humankind, by means of both oblivious jinn-kind and oblivious humankind’.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 114, An-Nas (Oblivious Mankind, Oblivious Jinn-kind), verse 1-6
Similarly, our master Mohammad (cpth) was also afflicted with the spiritual pain and distress that had befallen our master Job (pth) before him, because of the stubbornness of his people – the people of Quraysh – and their insistence on disbelieving in the beginning. This affected him to the point that his noble spirit was distressed by sorrow and spiritual torture, leading the Almighty to address him in His Holy Saying, as discussed previously: “Oh Ta-Ha, it was not to distress you that We have revealed the Qur’an to you.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 20, Ta Ha ‘Ta-ha’ (Pure), verse 1-2
And in another verse He says: “…do not destroy your spirit feeling sorry for your people…”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 35, Fatir (Orignator), verse 8
And the holy prophetic saying tells us: “The most afflicted and distressed people are the prophets, and next are the perfect and worthy men, and then the most alike to them and so on.”[45] This is in reference to a spiritual affliction that comes from their great compassion and tenderness for everything in creation.
When this noble messenger, our master Job (pth), called upon his Provider, He, the Almighty, responded to his call and taught him what to do by ordering him to migrate from his own country to another. This was in His saying: “Run with your legs; this is cool bathing and a drink.”: this means that our master Job should move to another place in which the people he is trying to help will believe the truth. Their spirits will be made clean and pure by his spiritual bath: they will drink truth and perfection from him. Thus, he had to leave the country in which he was – where he suffered the spiritual distress he suffered because of the opposition he faced – and go instead to another country close by, where his people would find this cleansing and this drink for their spirits.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 38, Sâd (the Letter, S = True), verse 41
No sooner had our master Job (pth) heard of the place to which God had ordered him to go than he rushed hastily to it.
God the Almighty made this migration of His messenger into a means for him to guide his people along with many more with them. This is referred to in the noble verse: “We granted him his people and as many more with them rightly guided…”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 38, Sâd (the Letter, S = True), verse 42
This tale is exactly the same as what happened with our master Mohammad (cpth), who was patient, despite his people’s shunning of him, until he was given the permission to migrate: “As your Provider bade you to leave your home by right…”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 8, Al-Anfal (Spoils of War), verse 5
So, he migrated with his migrating companions to Medina, where he met people who believed in him and who stood by him, and then he went back with them to his people in Mecca, where Al’lah granted him victory over them and let them be guided at his hands.
The situation with our master Job (pth) was the same. He also returned to his people, and by that time they were ready to appreciate and venerate him as one of might and authority. They then believed along with him, and consequently a great Islamic revival took place during his age, which was similar to the age of our noble messenger (cpth).