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The topic of personality or personhood is a controversial one in philosophy, and literally so, in my opinion, for just as the Latin etymology of ‘controversy’ refers to ‘being turned in an opposite direction’, I consider some form of opposition to be the very essence of a person.
Inanimate matter is at one with its environment. Plant life is distinct from its environment, but rooted in it. Animals take one step further on the path to personhood, figuratively and literally; they are motile, or capable of moving through their environment. Persons do the same, of course, but self-consciously; they intentionally contrast themselves with their environment and identify themselves in opposition to it.* The details and degrees of this separateness are matters of detailed discussion among philosophers, but few would deny that some sense of self is fundamental to being a person in comparison to being an insect, a shrub, or a stone.
* This could be why ‘No’ is such a popular first word with children in the early stages of their development as they start to distinguish themselves from their parents. On a grander scale, one might extrapolate from what we see in children to wonder whether Iblis is the prime symbol of this pressing need to say ‘No’.
The First Person, in more ways than can be mentioned here, is GOD. In the Divine Unicity and Absoluteness GOD is Alone, and hence has no environment whatsoever; in this sense GOD is All there is, and so beyond personhood. But if, given our limited perspective, we conceive of GOD as a distinct entity, somehow separate from His creation (which in absolute terms He is not), then we might say that GOD is the First Person – unimaginably transcendent relative to all that He creates.
Are angels persons? We know they are innumerable, and in many ways inconceivable.
Truly I see what you do not see, and hear what you do not hear. Verily heaven is groaning, and it is right to groan. There is no space of four fingers’ width but has the forehead of an angel on it, prostrating to AL-LAH. (Sunanub-ni Majah, Book 37, Hadith 4330)
إِنِّي أَرَى مَا لاَ تَرَوْنَ وَأَسْمَعُ مَا لاَ تَسْمَعُونَ إِنَّ السَّمَاءَ أَطَّتْ وَحُقَّ لَهَا أَنْ تَئِطَّ مَا فِيهَا مَوْضِعُ أَرْبَعِ أَصَابِعَ إِلاَّ وَمَلَكٌ وَاضِعٌ جَبْهَتَهُ سَاجِدًا لِلَّهِ
We also know that they live in total subservience to GOD.
They fear their Lord above them, and they do what is commanded them. (Q16:50)
يَخَافُونَ رَبَّهُمْ مِنْ فَوْقِهِمْ وَيَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ
Given this complete subjection to GOD’s will, how can they be said to be persons at all? It could be their God-fearingness and utter humility that delineates them most sharply as individuals. The perfection of their perspective, their sheer willingness to abase themselves and look up to Him in contrast to, and yet complementing, His downward gaze, is the very pinnacle of their personality, and makes them, moreover, models for our own approaches to the Divine.
For most modern Western individualists, this is too large a dose of spiritual medicine to swallow, and so it proved for Iblis. As a member of the race of jinn, he had not been expected to match the angels’ fervent adoration. After spending thousands of years in diligent worship of GOD, however, he was granted a place of honour among them, and was present when AL-LAH created the first human.
The difference between his motivation and that of the angels became apparent when AL-LAH commanded them to prostrate themselves out of respect to Adam. The angels had been worshipping AL-LAH for His sake only, associating nothing with Him, and so fell down in prostration instantly. For them, GOD’s command was absolute and beyond question. But Iblis had been worshipping GOD on the basis of reasoned reflection – or, more accurately, as a matter of conscience (from Latin conscientia, i.e., “knowledge within oneself”)1– leading him to believe that the same superiority by which GOD deserved his worship ought to be applied within His creation. He believed that AL-LAH had no right to issue an order that violated what he thought to be the rational order of the universe – one in which he, Iblis, had a unique and privileged station. It made no sense to him, for he had been unconsciously equating AL-LAH with something else, namely his own conception of what Divinity should be. This secret egoism and blinkered rationality were his downfall.
1From the entry in Wiktionary, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/conscience
The GOD You Already Know 