called a kāfir” (N. art. rajm). Thus a plain verse of the Holy Qur’ān which really condemns the practices of diviners and soothsayers has been misinterpreted to mean that the stars were used as missiles for the devils who went up to heaven. Reference to this subject is contained in two other places in the Holy Qur’ān: “Surely we have adorned the lower heaven with an adornment, the stars. And (there is) a safeguard against every rebellious devil. They cannot listen to the exalted assembly and they are reproached from every side, (being) driven off, and for them is a perpetual chastisement; except him who snatches away but once, then there follows him a brightly shining flame” (37:6-10). “And certainly We have made strongholds in the heaven and We have made it fair-seeming to the beholders, and We guard it against every accursed devil, but he who steals a hearing; so there follows him a brightly shining flame” (15:16-18).35 On both these occasions, the principle is again stated in forcible words that the soothsayers and diviners have no access to heaven or the stars on which they base their conjectures; it is they again who are here called the rebellious or accursed devils—“They cannot listen to the exalted assembly.” But we are also told that “they are reproached from every side, being driven off,” i.e., their own votaries do not honour them, and they are reproached because what they assert proves untrue and therefore they live in perpetual torture. And then there is an exception: “Except him who snatches off but once”. Now this snatching away of the soothsayers, after we are told that they are reproached from every side and driven off, clearly means nothing but that occasionally their conjecture turns out to be true. The same idea is expressed in the second verse by the words “he who steals a hearing.” It is of course not meant that the Divine secrets are being discussed aloud somewhere in heaven and that the devil is hiding and overhears them. Divine revelation, as already shown on the authority of the Holy Qur’ān, is entrusted to the Faithful Spirit, that is Gabriel, who, in turn, discloses it to the heart of the Holy Prophet — there is no question of overhearing in this process.36 It has also been established on the authority of the Holy Qur’ān that the devils cannot ascend to heaven, that they have no access to Divine secrets. It would, therefore, be a travesty of all these clearly established principles to say that the devils can overhear the Divine
35 The Arabic words translated as “brightly shining flame” are shihāb and thāqib. The former means only a flame (LL. Also compare 27:7 where Moses goes to bring a shihāb); and the latter means that piercing through the darkness or brightly shining (LL.) — the meaning being that a sooth-sayer gets but one opportunity but there soon follows a flame that dispels the darkness to which he leads men.
36 The following ḥadīth cannot be taken literally, inasmuch as certain portions thereof are opposed to the Holy Qur’ān. The Holy Prophet is reported to have said that when God intends to send a revelation, the heavens are shaken and the heavenly hosts swoon and fall down in prostration. Gabriel is the first to raise his head and to him God reveals His pleasure. The angels then enquire of Gabriel what God has said, and he replies: The Truth, and He is the High, the Great. The secret listeners hear a part of this. Some are destroyed by the flame of fire but some are successful in imparting the news to others before they themselves are destroyed, and these latter take the message to the kāhin (diviner) on earth (34:1; Bu. 65). Different versions of this report are met with, but I have taken the most salient points of all. Now whereas a large number of reports state, and the Holy Qur’ān also is explicit on this point, that revelation is communicated directly to the Holy Prophet by Gabriel, without any intervention, this report says that it is communicated by Gabriel to other angels, and this is done in such a way that even the devils can hear it, while according to the Holy Qur’ān the devils are “far removed from the hearing of it” (26:212). Hence the report being opposed to the Holy Qur’ān and other ḥadīth, cannot be accepted in its entirety. There has undoubtedly been some misunderstanding somewhere in the course of transmission, and the wrong view of some narrator has crept in.