One of the most amazing images of love that I know is Persian
a mystical Persian representation of Satan as the most loyal
lover of God. You will have heard the old legend of how,
when God created the angels, he commanded them to pay worship
to no one but himself; but then, creating man, he commanded them
to bow in reverence to this most noble of his works,
and Lucifer refused because, we are told, of his pride.
However, according to this Moslem reading of his case,
it was rather because he loved and adored God
so deeply and intensely that he could not bring himself
to bow before anything else. And it was for that that
he was flung into Hell, condemned to exist there forever,
apart from his love.
Joseph Campbell, The Mythology of Love
