“(He does this) in order that He may make the evil caused by Satan a trial for those in whose hearts there is sickness (of hypocrisy), whose hearts are hard (and vitiated). Surely these wrong-doers have gone too far in their dissention. (He also lets this happen) in order that those endowed with knowledge may know that it is the truth from your Lord and that they may have faith in it and their hearts may humble themselves before Him. Verily, Allah always directs those that believe to the Right Way.”
(Al-Qur’ān 22:53-54)
God made Satan’s evil designs a means of testing people so that those who are righteous may be distinguished from those who are evil. In the nature of things, those whose minds have been corrupted derive wrong conclusions from such things and this in turn becomes a means of misleading them. The specific stage through which the mission of the Prophet ﷺ was then passing misled many of those who were concerned only with appearances. Such people, therefore, behaved as though the Blessed Prophet had failed in his mission.
As for those whose minds are straight, those very things lead them to confirm the truthfulness of God’s Prophets and His Books. The result is that these people are led to believe that all these are no more than Satan’s mischiefs. They know that the Prophet’s call is essentially to accept nothing other than truth and righteousness. Had this not been so, Satan would not have carried on so desperately.