God is the protector of the believers…Concerning these words Sahl said:That is, [He protects them with] the protection of [His] good pleasure (riḍā). He is their protectordue to the former guidance He granted them, and His knowledge concerning them, of their affirmation of His oneness. This is due to His knowledge that they have freed themselves from every cause except their Creator. Hence they were taken out of the darkness into the light, and from disbelief, error, disobedience and innovation to faith, which is the light that God, Mighty and Majestic is He, established in their hearts. This is the light of the insight of certainty (nūr baṣīrat al-yaqīn) by which they seek inner perception of the divine oneness (tawḥīd), and obedience to Him in that which He has commanded and forbidden. For anyone to whom God gives no light, there is no light! [24:40]His words, Mighty and Majestic is He: And the disbelievers — their protectors are false deities…That is, Satan.Sahl said:The head of all devils is the evil-inciting self (nafs ammāra bi’l-sūʾ), for Satan cannot overpower man except through the desire (hawā) of his lower self. So if he [Satan] senses something that it desires, he casts temptation at it.
