The man of the revelations who sloughed them off

God commands His prophet to recite to his people 'the tale of him to whom We gave Our revelations, but he sloughed them off, so Satan overtook him and he became of those who lead astray', describing his state: had God willed He could have raised him thereby, but he clung to the earth and followed his own desire, till his likeness became as the likeness of the dog that pants whether you burden him or leave him al-A'raf 175 al-A'raf 176.

The Qur'an adds that God saved him and his family from the town that used to work evil deeds, that those who believe and do righteous deeds have gardens beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein forever, then says 'the wrongdoers will not prosper' al-A'raf 180 al-A'raf 181.

The Qur'an does not name this man; the tafsir books identify him as Bal'am ibn Ba'ura of Bani Israel, the one whom their prophet sent to oppose the prophet of God, whom Iblis whispered to until he disobeyed — the reading Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy takes in his lessons on Bal'am's long deviation ^{2 3}. He has his own record in this browser ³.

These verses are among the Qur'an's clearest texts that Satan leads astray not only through open disbelief but through a person's sloughing off the revelations he was given; the tafsir read them as the type of everyone who abandons guidance after receiving it ¹.