Allāh has also called the obedience of Shaytān in disobedience to Him, worship of him,
أَلَمْ أَعْهَدْ إِلَيْكُمْ يَا بَنِي آدَمَ أَن لَّا تَعْبُدُوا الشَّيْطَانَ إِنَّهُ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّ مُّبِينٌ
Did I not make a contract with you, tribe of Adam, not to worship Shaytān, who truly is an outright enemy to you. [Ya Sin 36:60]
Allāh, Exalted is He, quotes His beloved Ibrahim as saying to his father,
يَا أَبَتِ لَا تَعْبُدِ الشَّيْطَانَ إِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ كَانَ لِلرَّحْمَنِ عَصِيًّا
Father, do not worship Shaytān. Shaytān was disobedient to the All-Merciful. [Maryam 19:44]
Whoever has not actualized the worship of the All-Merciful and His obedience will worship Shaytān through obeying him. A person cannot free himself of the worship of Shaytān except by making his worship sincere and wholly for the All-Merciful. The latter are the people about whom He said,
You have no authority over any of My slaves except for the misled who follow you. [al-Hijr 15:42]
These are the people who have actualized, ‘None has the right to be worshipped save Allāh’: those who were sincere in articulating it and their deeds testified to the truth of their words. These are people who have not turned to any other besides Allāh in their love, hope, fear, obedience, and reliance. These are people who remained true to their testification: these are the true servants of Allāh.
“We try to keep our body healthy, and while we know we cannot see bacteria and viruses, if we are told that a certain place might contain them which may make us sick and might even kill us, we would avoid that place to protect our body. Doubts are also invisible at first, but we do not worry about protecting our faith the same way as we do the body. We fail to realize that what we hear and read can later affect our faith. That those same things can lodge onto the heart – creating a sick heart, or even a dead one. We think we can spot all dangers. We can’t. So we stay away to protect our deen from the dangers we cannot identify.“
Tawheed First 