76قالَ أَنا خَيرٌ مِنهُ ۖ خَلَقتَني مِن نارٍ وَخَلَقتَهُ مِن طينٍMuhammad AsadAnswered [Iblis]: "I am better than he: Thou hast created me out of fire,1 whereas him Thou hast created out of clay."I.e., out of something non-corporeal and, therefore (in the view of Iblis), superior to the "clay" out of which man has been created. Inasmuch as "fire" is a symbol of passion, the above "saying" of Iblis contains, I believe, a subtle allusion to the Qur'anic concept of the "satanic forces" (shayatin) active within man's own heart: forces engendered by uncontrolled passions and love of self, symbolized by the preceding characterization of Iblis, the foremost of the shayatin, as "one of those who think only of themselves as high" (min al-'alin).