What are the devil's seven steps he follows with the son of Adam?

Satan strives to lead the children of Adam astray and cause them to fall into sins. Ibn al-Qayyim mentioned six stages through which Satan gradually destroys a person:

1. Disbelief and Shirk (Polytheism): This is the first thing Satan desires from a servant. If he succeeds in this, he makes him one of his soldiers. 2. Innovation (Bid‘ah): If he despairs of disbelief, he moves on to innovation, which he prefers over immorality and sins due to its widespread harm to the religion. 3. Major Sins: If he fails to achieve innovation, he strives to make the servant commit major sins, especially if the person is a prominent scholar whose example is followed. 4. Minor Sins: If he fails to achieve major sins, he moves on to minor sins, which can destroy their perpetrator if they accumulate. He makes them seem easy to him until he belittles them. 5. Permissible Acts (Mubahat): If he fails to achieve minor sins, he busies him with permissible acts for which there is neither reward nor punishment, thus causing him to miss out on rewards. 6. Less Virtuous Deeds (Al-Amal al-Mafdul): If he fails to achieve permissible acts, he busies him with less virtuous deeds to make him miss out on the reward of more virtuous deeds.

If the servant thwarts him in these six stages, Satan unleashes his party from among jinn and humans upon him with various forms of harm.