The Devils Deception by Imam Ibn AL-Jawzi

T H E D E V I L ' S
D E C E P T I O N S
They look into poetry from the times of Ja!Jil[yyah, so they tend to
go by their desires a lot. You rarely see them acting piously, instead
they take from the unlawful money of leaders, because leaders enjoy
their company.
They sometimes believe something to be permissible when it is
not. Al-Zajjaj was the teacher of Al-Qasim Ibn 'Abdullah before
becoming a prime minister. Al-Qasim asked what al-Zajjaj wanted,
and the teacher wished for twenty thousand Dinars. Once appointed,
al-Qasim was afraid that the caliph would not allow him to be so
liberal with the treasury's money, so he gave the promised money to
al-Zajjaj by way of appointing him to oversee people's petitions and
encouraging him to ask for payments to the amount he thought was
proper. When al-Zajjaj reached the twenty thousand dinars that were
originally promised to him, he was so fond of the job that al-Qasim
let him continue indefinitely.
So observe at what the lack of knowledge does to a person. This
man was considered a master at grammar and linguistics, had he
known that what he had done was not lawful, he would not have
boasted about it.
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