Chapter
Five
The
Devil’s Doorway Into Mankind
Allah, all praise and glory is to Him,
has informed us in the Noble Qur’an that the devil has the influence of
inciting to anger, insinuating evil, whispering evil and touch, but what is the
difference between all these maneuvers? And what are the means by which the
devil penetrates the human soul, thus driving it into committing sin? How does
the devil frightens his followers, mastering them by fear? And how he
ultimately flees deserting the man fallen in sin, after he declares himself
innocent of him?
Before we begin, we must know that there is evil whispering
from the devil, and evil whispering and pushing into sin from the human self.
As Allah, all praise and glory is to Him, has informed us in the Noble Qur’an
that human selves differ, for there is the kindly self, the self constantly
self-reproaching, and the self that incites to evil.
The kindly self is the one that
performs nothing but what is good and benevolent. As for the reproaching self,
it is the self of a man who when falls into sin, it reproaches him, thus he
returns to goodness once more, for man may fall into sin more than once. As for
the self that incites to evil, it is that of a man who got used to evil, thus
nothing can spur feelings of remorse and disapproval in him; he is living with
this evil, enjoining it, he got used to it in a way that all his actions have
become wicked, and he is enjoying this wickedness!
But how can we tell that whispering is
either from the devil or the self?
As for the devil, he wants man sinful
anyway, so it does not matter what is the kind of sin, but rather all he cares
about is that man falls into sin. Hence, the devil attempts to lure man with
ill-gotten money, if he does not respond to such allurement, he hastily shifts
to tempting him into committing adultery and vice; upon failing, he tries with
him the temptation of liquors, thus if he finds all doors of sin closed before
him, he changes his maneuvers by attempting to mar his obedience through making
him boast of the charity he offers, hence he forfeits its reward, or when
prayer is due, he tries to hinder him from performing it.
One should know that such temptations
do not happen by force or compulsion, as the devil has no subjugating power
over man. But for instance, when the Azan [Call to Prayers] is pronounced, the
devil tempts man not to perform the prayer, but postpone it till the film he is
watching ends, and when it does end, he starts reminding him of things he
should do, like calling a friend, or eating his supper first, or making a visit
he has forgotten, and other wiles that the devil resorts to.
If man is a merchant, he starts
frightening him by the thought that if he went to prayer now, he might forfeit
many bargains, and thus would lose profit. In such a way, he keeps busying him
with one matter after the other, till the prescribed time of prayer is gone, or
he gradually abandons it. But if he fails in this, he starts whispering to him
during ablution and praying, in order to cause him to feel that he did not
perform ablution correctly, raising doubts about his ablution, so that he
repeats it more than once, then when he stands for prayer, he casts doubt into
him in such a way that man keeps repeating the prayer and no longer knows how
many rakahs he truly prayed or no longer knows whether he performed ablution
correctly or not.
Hence, the devil does not care about
the sin itself, but all he pants for is to make man sin.
As for the evil whispering of oneself,
it insists on a certain act of disobedience, and does not crave any other form
of sinning, in other word, the self impels one to commit a specific sin, and
repeats it, without tempting into other sins.
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