In consequence, the people of misguidance sometimes triumph over the people of truth, who are very powerful, with what is in reality a weak force. But the people of truth possess a  stronghold so unassailable that when they take refuge  in it, those fearsome  enemies  cannot  draw  close;  they  can  do  nothing.  If  they  cause  some temporary harm, according to the verse,

And the end is [best] for the righteous,(7:128, etc.)

everlasting reward and profit make up for the damage. That impregnable stronghold, that fortified citadel, is the Shari‘a of Muhammad (UWBP) and his practices.

SECOND INDICATION

Q u e s t i o n : The creation of devils, who are pure evil, and their harassing the people of belief, and many people not believing and going to Hell because of them, appears to be  terrible and ugly. How does the mercy and beauty of the Absolutely Beauteous One, the Absolutely Compassionate One, the Truly Merciful One, permit this infinite ugliness and  awesome calamity? Many people have asked about this question, and it occurs to many people.

T h e  A n s w e r : In addition to the minor evils, there are numerous universal good purposes in the existence of Satan, and human attainments and perfections. Yes, however many the degrees from a seed to the huge tree, the degrees in the abilities lodged in human nature are more numerous. They range from a minute particle to the sun. For these abilities and potentialities to develop, action is required, a transaction is necessary. In such a transaction the action of the mechanism of progress is triggered through striving. And striving occurs due to the existence of evil spirits and harmful things. Otherwise man’s station would have been  constant like that of the angels; there  would  have  been  no  classes  in  humankind,  which  resembles  thousands  of species. It is contrary to wisdom and justice to abandon a thousand instances of good so as to avoid one minor evil.

For  sure  the  majority  of  people  embrace  misguidance  due  to  Satan,  but importance and value look mostly to quality; they look to quantity little or not at all. If someone has a thousand and ten seeds which he buries, and under the earth the seeds undergo a chemical reaction as a result of which ten become trees and a thousand rot, the profit the man  receives from the ten seeds which have become trees certainly eliminates the loss he suffers from the thousand rotted ones.