Not all devils are locked up in Ramadan

Not All Devils Are Locked Up in Ramadan

Virtual Khutbah by Omar Suleiman

Opening

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu

"Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem"

We begin by bearing witness to the oneness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Asking him to send his peace and blessings upon his messenger Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم the prophets and messengers that came before his family and companions that served alongside of him and those that follow in his blessed path until the day of judgment. We ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.

Introduction: Technical Difficulties and the Topic

Dear brothers and sisters, as we are now one week into Ramadan I actually wanted to reflect on a discussion that usually comes up in the beginning of Ramadan when you go over some of the Is it really no audio or is it just me? Alright, I'm going to try this again. Okay. If any of you can hear me can you please give a thumbs up? If not, then I'm just going to have to go.

Okay. So the sound is on your end, inshallah. So I'm going to go ahead and start over again, okay? Alright.

There is audio. Okay. I kept seeing the comments that said there is no audio.

Alright. Alhamdulillah. So you need to press the sound inshallah and then you'll be able to hear.

Alright. Where was I? Speaking about shayateen being locked up meaning it's not just the shayateen that are locked up but also sometimes our technological capacities are locked up as well so I was worried about my microphone being messed up. I know that we've had an issue.

So I'm going to start over inshallah ta'ala.

"Alhamdulillahi was-salatu was-salamu 'ala Rasoolillahi wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man walah"

The Hadith About Devils Being Chained in Ramadan

So we're one week into Ramadan and there's a lot of debate or a lot of discussion that often comes in accordance with a hadith that is spoken about as we're getting into the month of Ramadan which is when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said:

"Idha dakhala shahru Ramadan, futihat abwab al-Jannah, wa ghulliqat abwab Jahannam, wa sulsilat ash-shayateen"

when the month of Ramadan comes, that when the month of Ramadan comes, the doors, the gates of Paradise are opened. In one narration the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, the doors of mercy are opened and the gates of Hellfire are shut and the shayateen the devils are chained away, the devils are locked away.

The Technical Discussion

And there's a technical discussion to have about this hadith and then there's also something to reflect upon as far as what the implications are at a deeper level inshallah ta'ala. The first part of this is the technical part which is that if all of the devils are locked up, why is it that we still have issues? Why do we still sin? Why do we still get into it with one another? Why do we still feel temptation? Why do we still hear whispers? Why is it that we still end up in the same situations? And in some situations we feel even worse when Ramadan comes around some people would actually say that I'm feeling depressed because I'm not able to reach the goals that I had and I still feel distant from Allah and we're already one week in Ramadan and I don't know what's going to happen.

So why is there still an issue or why do we still sin and why do we still have the same issues in many situations that we had before Ramadan? The second technical part of this is are all of the shayateen locked away or are some of them locked away? And so there's a hadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, another narration of Tirmidhi where the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم mentioned that:

"Maradatush-shayateen"

that the big devils, meaning in the hierarchy of shayateen in the hierarchy of devils, there are those that command the smaller shayateen, the smaller devils to go out and to attack the people and it is the big shayateen that are locked away and the small shayateen including the qareen, including the one who whispers to every one of us individually those are still there. So your qareen that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم talked about, that is with you is still there, but the big shayateen that command them and that move things forward constantly and try their best to dissuade the people from acts of worship to sway them towards acts of disobedience, those are the ones that are locked away. So the big shayateen are locked away, the small ones are still there.

Some of the scholars said in fact all of them are locked away, right? But again, that hadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم seems to indicate that it's only a set of devils that are locked away, a set of shayateen that are locked away.

The Deeper Implications

What are the implications of this hadith though, for us? And how do we actually keep our shayateen locked away, our devils locked away for good? Not just in the month of Ramadan, but after the month of Ramadan. The first thing that we should reflect upon is where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the Quran:

"Allazee yuwaswisu fee sudoorin-nas"

That the only thing that the devils can do is they can whisper. They put ideas, they tempt, they try to cause us to not just disobey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but to be distracted from doing the good deeds of obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But on top of that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also mentions that the shayateen do not have any sultan, they don't have any control over you. except for those that willingly follow them.

And so in all situations, the devils do not control anyone, they don't have ownership of you. The only thing that they can do is whisper. And it's your choice whether or not you entertain their temptations and entertain their whispers and allow yourself to go down that path. So it's your choice whether or not you give them that access to your heart and that access to your thoughts that they constantly seek throughout the day and throughout the night. So that's that's the first thing. They are capable of waswas, they're capable of whispering, they don't have control over you.

The Self That Commands Evil

But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions to us:

"Innan-nafsa la'ammaratun bis-soo'"

that the self commands evil as well. The self commands evil as well. Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah, he mentioned this or he gave this example of a factory that is processing wheat and he said that the shaytan finds an opening to be able to plant some of those seeds and plant some of that some of those desires and those temptations and those whispers is when the shaytan finds a void when the devil finds a void within you.

The Role of Dhikr as a Fortress

And this is really important here because when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم talked about dhikr, when he talked about remembrance as a fortress that the devil cannot penetrate you know one part of that, one aspect of that, the obvious implication of that is that dhikr is that remembrance repels the shayateen away from you. But the other part of that is that if a person is busy with the remembrance of Allah how are they going to be tempted by the whispers of shaytan, right? The person is too occupied with something beneficial to be tempted to something that is so vain, so lowly and calls them to something of no purpose. And so there's a connection between the remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the whispers of shaytan and if you are busy with good, shaytan cannot busy you with evil.

Okay, shaytan cannot busy you with evil. So you have to ask yourself just as dhikr fills a void in the heart, remembrance fills a void in the heart. Remembrance to the heart is as some of the great scholars mentioned is like oxygen, right? It's our spiritual oxygen.

Dhikr is our spiritual oxygen and when a person is pumping out the dhikr of Allah, the remembrance of God there is no room for the shaytan to find himself in there to dissuade you there. And so some of the scholars commented on this and they built upon this and they said one of the benefits of this is that if you think about the things that shaytan penetrates in your life he penetrates your thoughts he penetrates your deeds he penetrates your good he penetrates your social interactions he penetrates your wealth, he penetrates all of these different things what you have to ask yourself is how much of that how much of an opening are you giving to him in the first place to be able to find that room to start to twist and start to turn and start to dissuade you and misguide you away from your Lord subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that's an important point that if you take the analogy of dhikr to the heart and apply it to everything else.

Practical Examples: Wealth and Social Interactions

And so if a person has tasted subhanAllah right now at this moment there's a line in Dallas of people that are picking up food and masks from about 40 Muslim businesses and charities that have come together and they're serving people right and left with food and with masks and things of that sort. And one of the business owners actually made this comment which I found very beautiful. He said alhamdulillah for this opportunity he said wallahi the sweetness of being able to serve the people on the street right now is greater than the sweetness of business picking up because he owns a store where people can come you know which is which puts him in a place of advantage right now and that others are struggling but you know people are in need of the things he's selling, the food and the groceries he's selling.

He said but the sweetness of being able to spend this in the way of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to do good with this far outweighs the sweetness of the purchases and the racking up of the sales inside the store the sale of good and so you don't you know when a person starts to go down that track how is shaytan gonna get in and sway that person towards selling haram, sway that person towards selling that which is prohibited in order to build up their sales if they're really thinking about how wonderful it is that Allah has given them an opportunity to do good with their wealth and so you box the shaytan out of your wealth if you're making that connection and you start to say you know what if the sweetness of doing good far outweighs the sweetness of racking up something of this world something that's material then why would I sell haram? Maybe it's time for me to move on from something that's prohibited and just focus on that which is good and that which is beneficial. So how do you box the shaytan out?

When you think about your social interactions right the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم taught us to have niyyah to have a sense of intention with everything that they do when you are making your friendships in the first place when you are developing your social circles on what basis are those social circles being developed and if you you know just think about if you walk into a meeting and you don't have an agenda how distracted you're going to be how far away you're going to go from the actual objectives that are necessary to be fulfilled and so what is your agenda for everything that you do and so if the agenda for the heart is to pump dhikr in the spiritual sense to pump the remembrance of Allah then where is the shaytan going to be able to insert those seeds and some of the scholars said that this is what Allah is or what the Prophet of Allah is referring to in the hadith where he says that the devils are minimized in their influence.

The Environment of Ramadan

Why? Think about it dhikr, remembrance of Allah and the Quran is the greatest dhikr the Quran is referred to as it is the greatest remembrance the remembrance of Allah sends the devils fleeing from your home and right now people are trying to finish their khatmas of Quran the masajid on an ordinary basis would be full of the imams, the hufadh that are reciting the Quran out loud for a very long time, the adhan is lively in the masjid the amount of recitation of the Quran where is the shaytan going to find room in anyone's house right now if the people are engaged in the recitation of the Quran people that typically would commit sins outside of Ramadan and it's important for you to think about when you commit sins inside of Ramadan or when you commit sins outside of Ramadan you've got people that will forsake a sin throughout the entire month of Ramadan but then as soon as Ramadan is over go back to it and then they'll claim that it's just too much for me, I can't get away from this sin but you just proved that you can get away from it and so if the guilt of Ramadan or the weight of the virtue of Ramadan as is the case for many people that you know what I'm not going to do this right now because it's Ramadan even though it should be I'm not going to do this because it's Allah right but I'm not going to do this because it's Ramadan shaytan's you know hopeless that okay well I can't sway this person this way because they've already decided I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to listen to this, I'm not going to look at this, I'm not, they've already decided that while they're fasting they're not going to do these things so they have no room to penetrate there sadaqah you know shuts the mouths, charity shuts the mouths of the devils, it's like stuffing the mouths of the devils with dirt because every time you are called to sadaqah, we know the hadith of the Prophet the mouths of those shayateen open thousands of them those devils and say don't give, don't give, don't give, worry about your material worry about your material and you're stuffing their mouths when you give sadaqah and think about how many times the shayateen get punched in the face in Ramadan with all of the charity that's given in the month of Ramadan right, it is the month it is shahr al sadaqah, the month of sadaqah so where's the shaytan going to find any room with all of this good that's going on, so it's the environment of good that many of the ulama mentioned, that the shayateen find themselves locked out that they find that they cannot penetrate the spaces that they're usually able to penetrate that they're usually able to penetrate now of course Allah and His mercy limits their influence He shackles them in a way that allows us to get ahead, that allows us to propel ourselves forward to make those strides towards Allah that we've been called to make throughout the year but at the end of the day it comes back to you and subhanAllah one very beautiful reflection that I'd heard of this hadith from Dr. Ratib al-Nabursi, some of you know him, he's a very famous caller preacher in the Middle East, he said something really beautiful and he said:

"Saffadatish-shayateen"

you know if you look at the hadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم where he's talking about Ramadan he talks about Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم the end result so for example when you finish a complete Ramadan, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to complete this Ramadan, with mercy and with worship at the end of Ramadan your place in Jannah is guaranteed for you, right, and you're written down from Al-Utaqa, you're written down from those that are freed from the punishment of Jahannam, right, it's written down for you at the end of Ramadan that this person has completed this period they just spent the last 10 nights of Ramadan may Allah allow us to witness them saying:

"Allahumma innaka 'afuwwun tuhibbul-'afwa fa'fu 'annee"

Allah you are the one who forgives, you love to forgive, so forgive me, they just finished it, and so Allah writes it all down for them, and so he said if you think about this person:

"Saffidatish-shayateen"

he said the meaning, one potential meaning that could be extracted from this is that, and this is where we really want to get, that the Shayateen that used to bother you with certain sins, that used to be able to find access to you with certain sins, are locked up for good post Ramadan because you've repented to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى and you said I'm not going back to those sins you've made a firm determination to not go back to those sins, and so it's like the Shayateen are put away just as you're being recorded amongst the people of Paradise at the end of Ramadan like you have finished that beautiful period of fasting that beautiful period of worship you have finished that beautiful period of immersing yourself in Allah's mercy you have engaged the Quran, you've engaged prayer, you've cried in supplication, you are written now at the end of this period amongst the people of Jannah, may Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى make this amongst them, the Shayateen are locked up and put away, this is a person that I'm not going to be able to get to anymore, because they're not going to give me access, they're not going to give me access, I don't have a way to get back to that person because that person has put in the controls in Ramadan in the midst of their repentance to where they will not let me back in, and so you want to give Shaytan a life sentence right, you don't just want to give him a month sentence, you want to give him a life sentence, is it possible we talked about in the angels series, we mentioned the a couple of episodes ago the example of Umar ibn Al-Khattab رَضِيَ اللهُ تَعَالَى عَنْهُ who when the Shaytan sees Umar رَضِيَ اللهُ تَعَالَى عَنْهُ on the road, he just goes to another road, he says I have no way to access Umar رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ he's just he's so determined to please his lord to do what's right, that I just can't penetrate his mind, I can't penetrate his heart, I just, you know it's defeat, admitting defeat, and Imam Hassan al-Basri رحمة الله he said describing:

"Al-waswasil-khannas"

that Allah describes the Shaytan in conflicting ways الْوَسْوَاسِ is the one who whispers خَنَّاسِ is the one who sinks away you know, Shayateen can be locked up in Ramadan, you want to drown them to death rightso خَنّاس is literally someone who sinks, who drowns they're gone, they cannot you know, not in the literal sense but in the way they can't affect you they cannot ruin you because you've decided to connect to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى so Imam Hassan al-Basri رَحِمَهُ اللهُ he said that when a person remembers Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى:

"Idha ghafala waswasa, wa idha zakarallaha khanas"

when you become heedless of Allah, when you become heedless of Allah, then you let Shaytan in to whisper, and then when you remember Allah, when you remember Allah, Shaytan's like a drowning individual, like a drowning creation, he's got no access to you, he has no way to get to you, because your dhikr is forming a fortress, your remembrance is forming a fortress, Allah refers to the Quran as dhikr Allah refers to Salah as dhikr the prayer as dhikr as remembrance what are the fortresses that you're building in your life right now to give Shaytan a life sentence so that he will never be able to come back to you with the power and the access that he had before, and his power and access was already merely of one of temptation, merely of one of whispering, and he's not going to be able to have that, or he will not be able to have that to the same effect and impact if you sentence him by your actions and by your setting up those fortresses, the way that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given you the ability to, so that he may not be able to penetrate once again, and so we've got to think about these things and the ulama really talk about this idea of making the Shaytan despair in you, and that's a beautiful concept how do I make the devil, and his name is Iblis the chief of the Shayateen is Iblis which means the one who despaired, Iblis comes from Ablasa the one who despaired what did he despair in? He despaired in the mercy of Allah, he gave up on the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he chose to go down a dark path how do I make the Shayateen despair in me to where they don't feel like they can lead me astray anymore, they lose hope in you, they lose hope in you because they don't know how to take you away anymore because you are focused on pleasing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and so the greatest thing that you come out of Ramadan is not that Shaytan was put away for a month only to come back at you, you know viciously, right, only to come back at you with a vengeance and a lot of times we see right as soon as Eid happens, things happen, that might be by the way, one of the things that Shaytan is really sad about is if quarantine continues he might not get all those Eid parties where Shayateen have plenty of access to some of those Eid parties, right, you know it's not just the Eid Salah, he might not have that access anymore, you know, but in our own individual lives, how do I lock him out because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not gonna hold him back for a month just to release him like a wild dog on me after Ramadan Allah is giving you an opportunity to put him away for good.

Conclusion and Du'a

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow us to fortify ourselves, to guide us to fortify ourselves with the deeds that cause us to be surrounded by the angels and the deeds that cause us to have those angels report to him in a way that's favorable in our regard and in a way that attains his pleasure and in a way that causes our Shayateen to despair just like the chief of those devils despaired in the mercy of Allah may they despair from leading us away from the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allahumma ameen I pray that you all continue to find blessing in this Ramadan and I hope that you all are engaging in your Tarawih, in your recitation and finding, you know, great fruit in this Ramadan and it's the day of Friday, a blessed day in a blessed month of Ramadan so I want to remind you all inshallah ta'ala to increase in Salawat today to increase in the prayers upon the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم I want to remind you to recite Suratul Kahf if you can today inshallah ta'ala I want to remind you to make use of the last hour of the day, Sa'atul Ijabah the last hour of the day before Maghrib which is already an accepted time for the fasting person of supplication to increase that because now you have the Friday, the blessing of Friday with the blessing of being in the last hour of your fasting and of course to remind you inshallah ta'ala to also do acts of good and one of those acts of good is Sadaqah, is an act of charity so if you feel inclined inshallah ta'ala then please do support the work that's being done at Yaqeen and the work that's being done by all of our beautiful organizations that of course are out there serving right now in such beautiful ways.

"Jazakumullahu Khayran"

may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless you all and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept from us all I'll see you all tonight inshallah ta'ala for Quran 30 for 30

"Was-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh"