Ninth Ramadan Lecture Presented by Al-Sayyid Abdul Malik Badruddin Al-Houthi, 1444 A.H.
Shaytan (1)
the symbol of evil and the primary enemy of mankind
I seek refuge in Allah from Shaytan, the outcast.
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Praise is to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. I believe that there is no god but Allah, the Sovereign and the Manifest Truth, and that Muhammad, our master, is His servant, Messenger, and Last Prophet.
O Allah, confer Your salat and blessings upon Muhammad and the Family of Muhammad as You conferred Your salat and blessings upon Ibrahim and the Family of Ibrahim. You are Owner of Praise, Owner of Glory! And be pleased with Muhammad's good companions and all Your righteous servants and mujahidin.
O Allah, guide us and grant us acceptance, for You are All-Hearing, All-Knowing; accept our repentance, for You are the Relenting and the Merciful.
Brothers and sisters, peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.
Allah (Glory be to Him) says in the Holy Quran, {'And by the soul and Who fashioned it, then with right and wrong inspired it! Successful indeed is the one who purifies their soul, and doomed is the one who corrupts it!'}. In these blessed verses, as well as in other verses in various surahs in the Holy Quran, Allah clarifies that the human soul in its nature and creation has a tendency towards good and evil (e.g., Taqwa and immorality, righteousness and corruption, etc.). He (Glory be to Him) has inspired this soul with the knowledge of good and evil. Then within the march of life comes the role of man in purifying his soul or in moving in the other direction that renders his reality to an evil reality (We seek refuge in Allah).
In another verse, Allah (Glory be to Him) also says, {' indeed, We created humans from a drop of mixed fluids, to test them, so We made them hear and see. We already showed them the Way, whether they be grateful or ungrateful'}. And He also says to show what means He provided humans with, {'Have We not given them two eyes, a tongue, and two lips; and shown them the two ways ?'}.
Through what He has bestowed upon humans in their innate human nature (the various capacities, abilities, and potentials He has instilled in them, as well as what He has guided and directed them to and taught and alerted them about), Allah has distinguished between the two paths (the path of good and the path of evil) for humans to make things clear for them. Therefore, humans, at the innate level, generally recognize crimes as crimes and consider them to be bad. They describe them as crimes. They also generally recognize noble virtues and acknowledge them as great and honourable morals and so on. Furthermore, through divine guidance by means of messengers and prophets, Allah (Glory be to Him) has detailed and extensively explained these matters.
To receive divine support and free yourself from the traps of Shaytan
If one chooses to go in the way of goodness, the elements of goodness within himself will grow, and his inclinations, desires, and interactions will be directed towards good, making his soul righteous and good. Besides, Allah will also increase his guidance and make him enjoy His assistance, ease, and care in that great path he sticks to: Allah says in the Holy Quran: {'But Allah has endeared faith to you, making it appealing in your hearts. And He has made disbelief, rebelliousness, and disobedience detestable to you. Those are the ones rightly guided'}; {'And as for those who are guided, He increases them in guidance and gives them their Taqwa'}; {'As for the one who is charitable, mindful , and believes in the finest reward, We will facilitate for them the Way of Ease'}; and {'Whoever Allah wills to guide, He opens their heart to Islam'}.
Having a heart open is a very important matter, for this can make one move willingly and comfortably. His innate energy finds comfort, intimacy, tranquility, and peace in goodness and in doing what is good and righteous deeds, sticking to high morals and truth, accepting what is right, responding to the guidance of Allah (the Almighty), and feeling attracted towards Allah. As a result, such a person keeps away from the path of evil: He hates crime and abhors reprehensible actions and bad behaviour. His state of Taqwa strengthens within him in a way that makes him resist the inclinations of the sous. Therefore, even if negative desires and impulses are present, his state—the state of righteousness and the increasing goodness and self-purification within him—and the remembrance of Allah's guidance, as well as divine care, make him steadfast in the face of the inclinations of the soul. He prohibits his soul from following inclinations, admonishes it, and reminds it of the flaws, dangers, negatives, and consequences of those evil things that the inclinations of the soul have been aroused by. He prevents the soul from following its inclinations and redirects it away from the wrong path, from disobedience. That is why Allah (Glory be to Him) says, {'And as for those who were in awe of standing before their Lord and restrained themselves from desires, Jannah will certainly be home'}. Having this orientation gains one strength against Shaytan's whispers, which come as another factor, along with the inclinations of the soul, and aim to arouse and exploit the inclinations of the soul.
At the crossroads of good and evil, and the outcomes of each
The person who is in the way of good, purity, faith, and Taqwa gains strength against Shaytan's whispering and his attempts of temptation and sets himself free from Shaytan's power, as Allah says in the blessed verses: {'Verily, he has no power'}—referring to Shaytan—{'over those who believe and put their trust only in their Lord. His power is only over those who obey and follow him and those who join partners with Him'}. He gains more strength and enjoys Allah's support and guidance, and when he faces grave peril or traps through which Shaytan tries to hunt him, there is what keeps him firm in the face of that, as Allah's care comes. That is because when one moves with sincere determination and great devotion to Allah, this makes him enjoy His support and guidance, even if he deviates at times, he returns to the right path, and his deviation is considered limited and slight in comparison to others who have been influenced by Shaytan.
If a person turns towards the inclinations of the soul, immorality, and evil, the elements of evil grow within him, and the filth accumulates within him gradually. The more he continues in the wrong direction, bad deeds, and deviations, the more filth accumulates within him until his soul becomes corrupted. His bad inclinations and desires will grow too until they become a heavy burden on his soul, pushing him towards bad deeds and actions that reflect disobedience to Allah and have negative effects on him, his life, and society. He feels a great pressure within himself in relation to those inclinations. If he continues more and more, he reaches the point of complete corruption of his soul, and his heart goes astray (We seek refuge in Allah), making his evil deeds beautified to him.
Therefore, the warning in the Quran came against following inclinations, against that a person becomes a follower of the inclinations of the soul and its bad tendencies: As soon as he feels that his soul is inclined towards bad deeds, actions, or desires, he follows them and pursuits those desires and bad deeds, following the inclinations of the soul. He automatically follows the inclinations of the soul, seeking to satisfy those desires, no matter how bad they are.
Allah (Glory be to Him) warns about the state of deviation, which is a very grave state, saying, {'So when they deviated, Allah caused their hearts to deviate'}. When a person reaches a point where his heart deviates completely away from truth, guidance, goodness, and righteousness, he will be forsaken by Allah (Glory be to Him) and deprived of His guidance. Allah leaves him in his deviation, and he becomes completely deviated from truth, completely inclined away from it, and completely distant from it (We seek refuge in Allah).
In the Quran, Allah warns against this state and draws a comparison between this state and the state of those who do not base their lives on the desires, whims, inclinations, and impulses of their souls, but rather on the guidance of Allah, the Almighty: They submit themselves and their emotions to the instructions and guidance of Allah. In this regard, He (Glory be to Him) says, {'Can those who stand on clear proof from their Lord be like those whose evil deeds are made appealing to them and follow their desires?'}. One falls into a negative and bad state when he becomes subservient to the inclinations, moods, and desires of his soul. As long as these emotions, whether desires or impulses, exist, he desires to follow them and turns his back to the instructions of Allah (Glory be to Him). The more a person persists In this path throughout his lIfe, indulging in bad deeds and adopting negative inclinations, the more corruption accumulates within his soul.
So in both directions (the honest, righteous, faith-based, soul-purifying direction and the bad direction of evil, immorality, and inclination, which is taken by many people), the situation gets each group to reach a specific result:
- Those who take the path of goodness, purification, and Taqwa reach the level that their souls become righteous, while
- the others get to the level that their souls become wicked (We seek refuge in Allah).
As a result, Allah (Glory be to Him) says, {'Never would Allah leave the believers in the state which you are in until He distinguishes the nasty from the good'}. Indeed, a person cannot but get into one of these two states. The first is to get his soul to be righteous if he goes in the right direction: the direction of purification, Taqwa, faith, righteousness, good, and adherence to the guidance of Allah, the Almighty. This makes his soul righteous, and when this happens, this means that all elements of good in his soul have increased and that his feelings have been purified and have become free of all the bad, evil impurities. So he moves towards what is good, towards good deeds, towards Taqwa, and towards righteous deeds. This can be seen in his inclination, response, desire, harmony, and interaction; and this prevails in his reality. In other words, this state will be the predominant, prominent, and most influential aspect in his feelings and conscience. Therefore, he becomes increasingly receptive to the guidance of Allah (Glory be to Him) and more responsive in the practical reality to the instructions and commands of Allah. However, if he turns towards the wrong path, his soul becomes corrupted, and then comes the test that reveals his state. The test unfolds in the realm of reality: {'Never would Allah leave the believers in the state which you are in until He distinguishes the nasty from the good'}.
In the state where a person's soul becomes corrupted in such a negative direction, the more one persists in that direction, the more his soul becomes corrupted. His inclination (the inclination of the soul) takes precedence over guidance, and he inclines towards it, leaning towards it and following it. This state opens up a serious vulnerability to Shaytan, where the role of Shaytan emerges as an additional factor alongside the inclination of the soul, contributing to the negative direction and the negative state that keeps growing within himself. This comes as a result of the wrong direction—that evil and bad path he chooses to follow. Consequently, he becomes more susceptible to the whispers and temptations of Shaytan, who is indeed a clear enemy to mankind.
Shaytan is the symbol of evil, so why the negligence towards this danger?
Allah (Glory be to Him) has warned all human beings about Shaytan and made it clear to them that he is a clear enemy who targets them all: He targets the entire human race. What the Holy Quran highlights about Shaytan is very important. However, despite the fact that all humans are aware that he is their enemy—they despise him, curse him, and view him as an element of evil, an enemy, and a symbol of wickedness, corruption, and disbelief—many people are influenced by him, and in many cases, many people fail to pay attention to Shaytan, his intense enmity, and his continuous efforts to tempt humans.
Many people are too neglectful about the danger of Shaytan and his efforts to target them. There are even those who might laugh at you when you seek to warn or remind them about Shaytan as you see them in a certain situation being driven by a desire or an emotion into a bad direction, attitude, or action. They think that there is no way that Shaytan can influence them, even when they are in that negative state.
Therefore, it is extremely important for a person to pay attention to what is mentioned in the Holy Quran regarding Shaytan, his danger, his intense hostility towards humans, his methods of targeting them, and the vulnerabilities through which he seeks to influence them.
In the Holy Quran, Allah (Glory be to Him) addresses all humanity, saying, {'O humanity! Indeed, Allah's promise is true'}. Allah's promise regarding the reckoning and requital, Jannah and the Fire, and the consequences of actions, positions, and attitudes in both the immediate world and the Hereafter, is true, without a doubt, and it is coming and will be certainly fulfilled.
{'So do not let the life of this world deceive you, nor let the Chief Deceiver deceive you about Allah'}. The Chief Deceiver is the one who seeks to deceive you and make you heedless of Allah (Glory be to Him) and the responsibility between you and Him, and he also seeks to keep you away from obeying Allah and from seeking what is good for you.
{'Surely Shaytan is an enemy to you, so take him as an enemy. He only invites his followers to become inmates of the Blaze'}. It is Shaytan, the Chief Deceiver, who seeks to deceive you and to make you heedless of Allah (Glory be to Him), His promise of reward and punishment, and your responsibility towards Him. He strives to lead you towards destruction and loss!
{'Surely Shaytan is an enemy to you'}—an enemy in every sense of the word, a clear enemy filled with hatred towards you. He seeks your destruction and loss and aims to inflict the greatest harm upon you. He strives to harm you and expose you to danger. He is an enemy in every sense of the word, with very intense enmity.
{'Surely Shaytan is an enemy to you, so take him as an enemy.'} This is what many people fail to do: They do not consider him as an enemy. Therefore, their condition makes it possible for him to influence them, execute his plots against them, and push them towards what is harmful and evil to them.
Due to his intense enmity and hatred, Allah says about him, {'He only invites his followers to become inmates of the Blaze.'} He seeks to do so to them, even though they are his followers who have responded to him and inclined towards the wrong path he desires and seeks to drag them into and who have become loyal to him in their reality, as they choose to follow the path he wants and engage in actions that promote what he wants: spreading corruption, leading people astray from the worship of Allah, and causing turmoil.
They engage in those evil deeds he wants to prevail in the reality of human society: They do what he desires and move in the direction he wants them to go in. However, he does not appreciate that or change his mindset towards them: He would not say, 'Since they have become loyal to me, moving in my direction and following the same path I want them to be on, I should change my stance towards them positively.' No, he instead finds satisfaction in successfully leading them to the depths of Jahannam, to the greatest danger, the most severe punishment, and the biggest loss. To whom he does this? It is his party. He invites them and seeks to ensnare them to become the companions of the blazing fire (the companions of Jahannam) and to lead them to the fire of Jahannam, where they will burn and suffer. He considers this the most severe way to inflict the greatest harm upon humanity. Indeed, there is no other way that can cause greater harm, inflict greater damage upon humans, and bring about the greatest harm to humans: to deliver them to Jahannam, to the fire of Jahannam, where they will suffer forever, face the severest torment, lose Jannah, lose the pleasure of Allah, and live in misery eternally. He sees it as the greatest method by which he can strike a major blow to humanity. This is his situation with his party. Therefore, he is a fierce enemy to all humans.
How did the problem with Shaytan begin? And why does he bear malice towards mankind?
In the Holy Quran, Allah also illustrates the beginning of the problem, how the problem started with Shaytan: Allah, the Almighty, says:
{'We have indeed established you on earth and provided you with a means of livelihood. you seldom give any thanks. Surely, We created you, then shaped you, then said to the angels, "Prostrate before Adam," so they all did—but not Iblis, who refused to prostrate with the others. Allah asked, 'What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?' He replied, "I am better than he is: You created me from fire and him from clay"'}.
The beginning started with the appointment of humans as vicegerents on the earth and the controversy and questions among the angels as a result of that. When Allah appointed humans as vicegerents on the earth and provided them with livelihood and authority on the earth—which all began with the creation of the first human, our father Adam (PBUH)—Allah commanded the angels to prostrate to Adam, which is a long story mentioned in detail in Surah Al-Baqarah but is not within the scope of our discussion. When the command to prostrate to Adam was given, all the angels prostrated except for Iblis—he did refuse to prostrate to Adam!
Iblis was among the ranks of the angels, but his origin is from the jinn. In another verse (in Surah Al-Kahf), it is stated, {'But not Iblis, who was one of the jinn, but he rebelled against the command of his Lord'}. He is of the jinn in his origin and composition, not of the angels. However, he elevated himself among the angels and remained among them worshipping Allah for a long time. He became part of their group and was also commanded to follow the general commands given to them. That is why he was included in the command to prostrate.
However, when that test came upon him—after worshipping Allah for a long time among the angels in the heavens and reaching a rank of devotion, as some narrations state that he worshipped Allah with the angels in the heavens for thousands of years—he disobeyed the command of Allah, revealing a hidden reality within himself: arrogance and disbelief. He became arrogant, refused to prostrate, and objected to the issue of prostrating to Adam as a vicegerent on the earth. At that moment, Allah (Glory be to Him) expelled him from the heavens, cursed him, and forsook him: He said to him, {'Allah said, "Then get down from Jannah! It is not for you to be arrogant here. So get out! You are truly one of the disgraced"'}. He was expelled with humiliation and disgrace, and he became one of the debased. He aspired to be great and magnified himself, but he was humiliated, demeaned, and became small and lowly. He became despised, condemned, and cast out: {'So get out! You are truly one of the disgraced'}.
What happened to him, as a result of his disbelief, arrogance, and disobedience, which could be the first acts of disobedience to Allah? As a result of his expulsion from his position and the heavens and making him disgraced and insignificant, he became arrogant and angry and harboured the most intense hatred towards humanity, not just towards Adam alone, but towards human society in general, towards Adam and his descendants to the very last person. It was an extremely intense hatred. So what did he request? {'He appealed, "Then give me respite until the Day of their resurrection"'}. Why did he request to be spared until the Day of Resurrection? He wants to strive for the destruction of the entire human race, for the destruction of every generation within the entire human race, generation after generation. He wants his war and targeting to be against all humans, not just Adam alone or a certain generation. He seeks to bring about the destruction of the largest possible number of humans. This is an incredibly deep-seated malice.
{'He appealed, "Then give me respite until the Day of their resurrection." He said, "You are indeed of those reprieved."'} Here, it is a disclosure to him, not a response to his call or request: It is a revelation to him that he is granted respite, and his lifespan will be significantly long. {'He said, "Because You have led me astray, I will surely sit in wait for them on Your straight path. I will approach them from their front, their back, their right, their left, and then You will find most of them ungrateful." Allah said, 'Then, get out of it! You are condemned and rejected! I will certainly fill up Jahannam with you and your followers all together"'}.
The method of Shaytan in influencing humans
So he was expelled, cast out from the heavens, bearing the most intense malice and enmity towards Adam and his descendants through generations and striving to ensure the destruction of as many of them as possible. But how does he do it? Does he possess the ability to harm them against their will? Does he have the power to force them into the path of evil and corruption? No, his approach depends on whispers, misguidance, and corruption. He seeks to exploit the inclinations of the human soul and its negative tendencies. If a person inclines towards negative aspects, he comes to exert more influence on that person. He seeks to seduce humans because it is the most significant way to target them and inflict the greatest harm on them. He uses whispers as a means to achieve this goal.
The method of the jinn's devils, including their leader Iblis (May Allah curse him), is to use whispers in their endeavour to influence humans, as seen in the story of Adam and Eve (Peace be upon them): {'Then Shaytan tempted them in order to expose what was hidden of their nakedness'}; {'But Shaytan whispered to him, saying, "O Adam! Shall I show you the Tree of Immortality and such power as will never disappear?"'}.
What is the whispering used by Iblis and jinn devils to influence humans? The whispering used by Iblis and jinn devils to influence humans is a hidden method of creating emotional and mental impact on humans. For example, when a person is affected by desires and begins to have erroneous thoughts or take sinful actions or inappropriate attitudes to satisfy his personal desires and carnal inclinations, Shaytan may perceive this state, along with the accompanying mental focus. In other words, he can notice, based on the individual's actions, that desires, whims, and carnal urges have been stirred and the person has started contemplating the matter. In the case of whispering, which involves proximity and the addition of specific thoughts that push the individual further and motivate him more to lean towards that negative direction to satisfy his desires, the individual feels that those desires, which initially arose within him, have intensified in a way that inclines him towards engaging in bad deeds. And the same goes for his mental state: It becomes more engaged in additional thoughts, deeper contemplation, and increased mental fixation towards committing bad deeds to satisfy those desires.
Therefore, Shaytan comes as an additional factor, exploiting those interactions within humans. He takes advantage of the individual's desires and inclination towards negative and bad thinking and seeks to introduce more negative thoughts to him. As a result, the individual becomes more and more engaged in this, especially when he isolates himself from positive influences that could deter him from following that negative direction.
This also applies to the state of emotional outbursts. When a human is noticeably angry—that is, the state of anger is noticed—and starts, due to that state, to engage in negative thinking that further fuels his emotional state and irritation, Shaytan comes to increase that emotional state, just as heat attracts more heat, and fire fuels fire. Being a mass of negativity and evil, Shaytan increases the negative state within the individual: That emotional state becomes more inflamed, and he adds more negative thoughts to the individual, further escalating his responsiveness and emotional reaction and inclination towards negative actions as a result of that emotional state and negative thinking.
That is the state of whispering. Many people think they are alone while in such a state, whether it is a state of desire, anger, or fear that arises within their souls. They are unaware that a devil from the jinn has joined them in that state.
Iblis mobilizes his numerous devils, who over time have become active and perhaps their activities evolve just as activities do in human reality. They develop their methods of observing the realities of people, their problems, issues, concerns, thoughts, desires, and emotions. Based on that, they work to influence humans, taking advantage of their accumulated experience they gained over time.
Due to the importance of the topic and the many details it contains, we will (Allah willing) continue discussing it in the coming lectures.
We ask Allah (Glory be to Him) to grant us success in seeking what pleases Him, have mercy on our virtuous martyrs, heal the wounded among us, set free our captives, and grant us victory. You are All-Hearing!
Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.