Iblis’s (Satan) Gameplan - Sh

Iblis's (Satan) Gameplan

Speaker: Sheikh Saad Tasleem

Opening

Introduction: Two Extreme Misconceptions About Shaytan

Now the topic of the Shaytan, or the topic of the devil or Satan, there are a lot of misconceptions regarding the topic of Shaytan, and usually I like to put them in two main categories. So there's two big misconceptions and I would say they're two extreme stances towards the topic of the Shaytan.

On one hand, you may have people who say that the Shaytan or Satan or the devil is not an actual real being. So the devil is basically, and you hear some people say, the devil is like a metaphor for evil, or the devil is a metaphor for our evil feelings or evil inclinations and all that. There's no actually real being from the jinn who's a devil. There's no such thing like that. And you hear people say this is one camp and this is one extreme stance towards the topic of the Shaytan.

The reaction to that, and usually, and a lot of times people hold that stance because of the other extreme. And that other extreme, which is common as well, especially in the Muslim community, and that is people who blame all of their issues on the Shaytan. Anything bad happens in their life, they're like, "It's the Shaytan." And any sins they commit, they're like, "The Shaytan made me do it." Oh, it's the devil, it's Satan, right?

And even I know as a community, we tend to be afraid of things like the Shaytan. We tend to be afraid of things like evil eye, right, or Nazar as they call it. Like anything happens in your life, like, "Oh, somebody gave me Nazar." And the people who I personally call them Mashallah Nazis. You guys know these people, yeah? Anytime you compliment them on something and they're like, "Say Mashallah," right? That's like the first reaction that immediately they're so afraid that this compliment will lead to like them losing whatever they have that they immediately tell the person to say Mashallah.

And even the topic of saying Mashallah, it's actually a broader topic because we as Muslims, we're not supposed to be afraid of evil eye. Yes, evil eye is true. The Prophet said that most certainly the evil eye is true. Yes, people can be harmed from evil eye, but you have to realize evil eye or Ayn or Nazar is, number one, a lot more rare than we think, right? We tend to blame everything on Nazar. And as a matter of fact, I would say 95%

of the cases that we're like, "Oh, somebody gave me Nazar, somebody gave me Ayn, somebody gave me evil eye," is something other than that.

To the point where now in my life, I don't even answer questions about evil eye anymore, right? Because I've just had so many, especially talking about the topic of the Shaytan and the Shayateen, and that I've had so many people come up to me with their personal cases. And so I just don't deal with personal cases anymore. So like, "Sheikh, you know, this happened to me, whatever, can you tell me if somebody gave me Nazar?" Right?

And it's gotten to the point where I remember there's this one auntie, may Allah bless her, she always used to come to me with questions like this. Like she always was afraid somebody's constantly giving her like evil eye or something. So one day she came to me and she said, "Beta, I need your help." I said, "Okay, what's wrong?" She said, "You know, somebody gave me Nazar, somebody gave me evil eye." And I'm like, "Okay, you know," I know like she says it's a lot of whatever. So now I'm thinking, okay, let's hear this story. It's always an interesting story.

And she says, you know, I said, "Okay, why do you think somebody gave you evil eye?" And she said, "Well, you know, I recently, I just got sick all of a sudden." I'm like, "Okay, what happened to you?" She goes, "You know, you know, my throat has been hurting, you know, I've had a runny nose, I've been coughing." And I'm like, "So basically you have a cold." And she goes, "No, no, no, but you don't understand, it's serious." I'm like, "Okay, so what's serious about?" She goes, "What you don't understand is everyone in my house got it as well." And I'm like, "I'm pretty sure that's how colds work, right? I'm pretty sure that's how the flu works. It's contagious." Like, as far as I know.

She goes, "No, but you don't understand. There's this one lady, you know, she's always like praising my family and stuff, and I know that's not what she really, and she's really jealous on the inside," and all this whole long story. And I'm like, "Listen, it's because of these type of issues that people take the other extreme stance." Well, people will just reject the concept of evil eye, even though it is prophetically sound, it is authentically proven in the Sunnah of the Prophet, it is proven in the Quran, right?

And the things like, and also the concept of the Shaytan is proven by consensus of the ulama of this deen, from the time of the Prophet until today. There is overwhelming evidence that indeed these matters are real and true. But because people have taken this stance to where they've just blamed all their problems on the Shaytan, and I remember subhanAllah when I, and I teach a class on the topic of Shaytan, when I first introduced this class, quite a few people came up to me, especially those people who are not used to taking Al-Maghrib seminars. They came up to me and they said, "Well, I'm not gonna attend your class." And I'm like, "Okay, why?" They said, "Well, this is the problem with the Muslims today. The problem is that you guys blame, we blame everything on the Shaytan."

And I'm like, because you have this issue, because you have this view, you actually do need to take my class, because we address this very topic. We cannot blame the Shaytan for our own sins. We cannot blame the Shaytan for the mistakes that we make or when we sin against Allah. And this, inshallah, and I'm gonna try and

clarify this even when I get through the story of Shaytan, we're gonna talk about the story of Shaytan, but even as we talk about Shaytan, what you will, what will become clear to you by the end of the session today is that neither of those two extremes are actually true.

So on one hand, we cannot blame the Shaytan for our sins, right? We are fully accountable for our own deeds. When we sin, we are fully accountable, except for very, very few cases in which, you know, I'm not gonna get into that because that's a longer discussion. Except for a very, very small amount of cases. For the most part, if we take an action, then we are accountable for those actions. Yes, the Shaytan can tempt us. Yes, he can whisper to us. Yes, he can entice us. Yes, he has methods of deception. Yes, he uses footsteps to get us to disobey Allah, but still we cannot blame the Shaytan for our sins. So that'll become clear to you.

Also, it will become clear to you that the Shaytan, that the devil, is real and he is an actual being created by Allah. He's not just like a metaphor for evil as many people say.

The Story from Musnad Imam Ahmad

I want to begin, inshallah, with a story mentioned by Ibn Abbas in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad. This collection of Hadith known as the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, this is one of the largest collections of Hadith. A lot of the Hadith that you hear, most of them can be found in the collection of Imam Ahmad.

So there's a narration upon Ibn Abbas, who was the famous companion of the Prophet. He mentions a story that took place. He says in the 13th year of Islam, so 13 years after the angel Jibreel came to the Prophet and said, "Iqra," said, "Recite," right? 13 years after the message of Islam first came to the Prophet, this incident occurred.

Reference: Musnad Imam Ahmad

Historical Context: The 13th Year of Islam

Now just to give you some context regarding what was happening at that time, most of the Muslims had made Hijrah from Mecca to Medina. As we know, the Muslims were persecuted in Mecca. It was almost impossible for them to practice their religion. They were regularly tortured. They were regularly abused. They were constantly oppressed. And so Allah made a way for them to make Hijrah to the city of Medina.

So in the 13th year after the coming of the Risalah, after the coming of the message, most of the Muslims now they have made Hijrah. But still in Mecca, there's a handful of Muslims. Out of those Muslims, the most important Muslim is there, and that is the Prophet. And people ask, "Why didn't the Prophet make Hijrah along with the rest of the companions?" The reason was that the Prophet was waiting for a specific commandment to come down from Allah to allow him to make Hijrah, or to tell him that this is the time to make Hijrah. And so the Prophet was waiting. Yes, the companions had been given permission. Yes, most of them made Hijrah.

Who remained? The people who remained in Mecca was the Prophet, some members of his family, and a few of the Sahaba, amongst them Abu Bakr and some other members of the family of the Prophet as well.

Now 13 years, now we're 13 years into Islam. The situation in Mecca is still hostile. The Quraysh, the Mushrikun from Quraysh, they still, their top priority right now regarding Muslims and Islam is to destroy Islam. They want to get rid of the Prophet. They want to get rid of Islam. They want to get rid of this, in from their perception, a new religion, a religion that is just destroying or getting rid of the religion of their forefathers, right? So that is still now.

So for 13 years it's been building and building and built. So the animosity started from the beginning of Islam, from the moment the Prophet went public with the message of Islam. That animosity has been building and building and building. And you have personalities like Abu Jahl, and you have personalities like Abu Lahab who have this intense hatred for the Prophet. There's nothing like their whole being is devoted to just destroying the Prophet.

So 13 years have passed. The Quraysh are looking at the Muslims and they realize most of them have left. So they realize that they're losing control over the spread of Islam. So according to them, they're like, "Listen, as long as the Muslims are in Mecca, we can control them. We can suppress the spread of Islam. We can suppress Muslims and so on and so forth." Now that the Muslims are leaving, according to them, they're losing control over how much Islam will spread.

And their biggest fear now is that the Prophet, if he leaves, it's going to be an even bigger problem. Because the Prophet, who is the source of Islam at that point, who is the source of guidance for mankind at that point, and that's how they view him as well, if he leaves, then they have absolutely no control over Islam.

So what they want to do at this point is they want to make sure to deal with the Prophet ﷺ while he is still in Mecca, because they don't know when he's going to leave. And even they understood that it's only a matter of time before the Prophet goes and leaves for Medina as well.

So they decide to meet. The leaders of the Quraysh, they decide to have a meeting. They decide to gather. Why? What's the purpose of this? To try and figure out what to do with the Prophet. And this was a meeting known in a place known, they gathered in a place known as Darul Nadwa. It was a very secretive meeting. Most people from the Quraysh, they didn't even know this meeting was taking place. Basically, the way it worked was, if you weren't invited, then you wouldn't even know this is taking place.

Anyone in here ever been to, and I know nobody's gonna admit this, but anyone in here, have you ever been to an underground gambling circle? Anyone? No one? Okay, one person's not gonna look at. Right? The way underground gambling, you know, a lot of states, gambling is illegal, especially like underground gambling and all that kind of stuff. So what happens is, and especially in some like the bigger cities, talk about like New York City, Chicago and places like that, there's underground gambling taking place almost every night.

And the way it works is that the average person doesn't even know what's happening. And even if you knew it's happening, even if you wanted to go, if you wanted to attend, if you even if you wanted to go gamble, you

couldn't go because it's by invite only, right? If you're not invited, you're not coming. Even if you were to figure out where it was and you were to show up at the door and knock and be like, "Hey, I'm a baller, I have like tons of money, I want to come gamble," they'll be like, "I'm sorry, we don't know who you are. You can't come in."

This meeting was very similar in the sense that if you weren't invited, no matter how awesome or cool you are, no matter how much of a baller you are, they'd be like, "No, you cannot come in." And because you're not invited, we only invited the people that we trust. It was the leaders of the Quraysh, because they didn't want this information to get out. They didn't want someone to inform the Prophet Muhammad or his family or his companions that they're having this secretive meeting.

So they gather, as we said, Ibn Abbas says it was a dark night, it was a dark overcast night, right? It's still night. They gather at Darul Nadwa and they all come in one by one. And there's a person at the door who's basically guarding the door, making sure, and in our context, I'd be considered someone like a bouncer, right? So who's at the door? Protecting the door, making sure the wrong people don't come in. He's at the door and he's about to lock the door because according to him, everyone who was invited is already there.

As he's about to lock the door, a man sticks his hand through the door, basically signaling for him to be allowed in as well. And as he does that, they open the door to see who it is, and they see that it's a man that they don't recognize. It's an old man. And they ask him, they say, "Who are you and why are you here?" Because they're shocked, that they're surprised that anybody would even know that this is taking place. And secondly, even if you were to know, like, who would actually have the nerve? Like, who would actually want to or try to come into a meeting like this? I mean, this is only for the leaders of the Quraysh. This is only for the elite elite. It's only for the powerful.

And so they're surprised. They're like, "Who are you and why are you here?" And he says, "I have come from Najd." And by the way, Najd is a part of the Arabian Peninsula. It's quite a distance from Mecca. He says, "I've come from Najd, and I know why you have gathered here. And perhaps I can help you in what you're trying to accomplish." Right? That's all he said.

And so we've had a lot of scholars of Seerah, they say it's very interesting what happens next. It's very interesting and strange. And what happens is that even though they don't recognize who this person is, they don't know him, they've never seen him before, for some reason they trust him. For some reason they feel comfortable with him. And they say, "Okay, come in." Right? They allow him to come in. He comes inside.

And now the meeting starts. And basically now they're all gonna give their ideas of how to take care of the problem, how to take care of the person, right?

The Plotting at Darul Nadwa

And so one man stands up and he says, "Well, I have an idea." He says, "My idea is the way we deal with the threat of the Prophet is that we should imprison him. We should shackle his hands and chain him to the

ground in some random, put in some random dwelling, some random place, shackle him to the ground and imprison him."

After he says that, a lot of people in the room, they kind of have a positive reaction towards his suggestion. They're like, "Yeah, we can just imprison the Prophet and we're done with the threat."

Until the old man who had walked in at the last moment, he stands up. And he stands up and he says, "Wallahi," he says, "I swear by Allah, that this is not my suggestion for you." And now we would think that, first of all, who are you to even have an objection, right? You're not even one of the elders, right? And who are you to even speak? And that is what should have happened. What should have happened is like one of the leaders of the Quraysh should have stood up and been like, "Who are you to even say anything? Sit your butt down, right? Like, who are you?"

But once again, just like they trusted him to begin with, now once again, they're trusting him. And so they take him seriously. And they say, "Well, why isn't this a good idea?" They ask him. They say, "Well, okay, what's wrong with this idea?"

And the old man, he says, "If you were to imprison him, then most certainly the news of this imprisonment would spread. And sooner or later, his followers, his companions, are gonna come for us. Not only that, the tribe of Muhammad, they're going to go to war with us because we have imprisoned Muhammad for no reason."

And so he says, "This is not the correct, this is not what we should do. Not a good idea." And everyone in the room seems to agree.

He sits down. The man who had given the suggestion, he sits down. And now there's kind of like this murmur in the room. Everyone's talking to themselves. They're trying to figure out what to suggest.

Another man, he has an idea. He stands up and he says, "My idea is, I have the perfect suggestion." He says, "Why don't we expel him from Mecca? Why don't we take him to a land where no one knows who he is, where he has no family, he has no tribe, he has no supporters? We take him somewhere very, very far away and we leave him there."

And he's feeling pretty good about his idea until once again, the old man stands up and says, "No." He says, "No, I swear by Allah, this is not my suggestion for you. We can't do this."

And once again, they actually take him seriously. They say, "Why? Why is it that we can't do this? Why shouldn't we take him somewhere, expel him from the lands where nobody knows who he is and let him die, live out the rest of his life somewhere far, far away from us?"

And the old man, he says, "Well, if we were to do that, if we were to take him somewhere else, no matter where you take him, any land that you will take him to, certainly just like he was able to gather a following here in Mecca, he's gonna gather a following there as well. And as a matter of fact, the situation in Mecca is horrible for him. We've made it very difficult for him to spread Islam, and still he managed to gather a following. If you take

him somewhere where he doesn't have enemies, how do you know that he's not gonna gather another following? And once again, we're in the same situation that we were in when we started."

And he sits down. And now everybody in the room is talking, but talking to themselves. And people are almost afraid to give their suggestion now because they're thinking, "Well, everything that we suggest, this old man just shuts it down. He's like, 'No, we shouldn't do this and we shouldn't do that and we shouldn't do that."

It's like that person, uncle, excuse me, who always has a problem with anything that is mentioned, right? Like you'll always find something wrong. And by the way, please uncles, don't hate me. I love uncles, right? You guys are awesome, uncles and aunties, right? I tend to give their examples because, well, okay, I'm just gonna leave that, all right?

So that person, let's say that's not uncle, that person who just always has a problem with everything that you do, right? It's that person who's online and every time you post something, they find something wrong with something that you said, right? I call this person, by the way, the exceptionist, right? They find an exception to everything that you post, right? They say, and you say, you know, "Islam is all about love," a beautiful quote, right? You thought about that, you mean we thought about, you know, how Islam embodies love, and you're like, "Islam is about love." And this person says, "Well, actually, Islam is about love as well, but there are times when we're supposed to be angry and there's time..." And you're like, "Okay, relax, right? Like, I know there's exceptions, but can you just stop being a critic for one moment?"

So this is how they're viewing this guy, right? They're like, "Okay, anything we say, he's gonna have a problem with it." And nobody's speaking now. They're speaking to one another, but nobody's speaking until Abu Jahl, he's had enough, right? He's sitting there, he's been waiting, and he's been kind of like, you know, moving around in his seat. And now he gets up. He's like, "That's it." He stands up and he says, "Listen, I know all of you have given your suggestions, but how about I say what many of you are thinking, but none of you have the guts to actually say it?"

And they say, "What? What is it? Go ahead, tell us what you have to say."

And he says, "How about we just kill him? How about we just murder him? Just take his life and be done with this whole situation, right? No more figuring out what to do with him, bringing out to do with his followers and trying to control Islam and trying to fight them and this is daily struggle, because listen, let's just kill him. Just get rid of him."

And as he says this, the old man stands up again. And people like, "Okay, here we go again, right? Another problem." And the old man stands up. And the first thing he says is, "Na'am." He says, "Now, yes." He said, "الْآنَ قَالَ هُذَا الرَّجُلُ" He says, "The correct statement is what this man has said, right? What he said, that's what we should do."

And then a suggestion is put forward. And the scholars actually differ who put this suggestion forward. Some scholars say that it was Abu Jahl who said this next thing that I'm about to mention. Some scholars say it was the old man who made the suggestion. For the sake of our discussion right now, for the sake of our session,

we're going to assume that it was the old man. That seems to be the opinion of many of the scholars of Seerah, that it was the old man who gave that suggestion.

So what is this suggestion? He says, "Listen, we shouldn't just kill him, because, you know, it's not like they haven't thought of it before. There's a lot of problems with killing the Prophet. For example, if they were to just kill and murder him, number one, the person has a tribe backing him up. And to kill someone like that, it's just blatantly calling for war, right? And they don't want to go to war right now. They don't want to just open the door for war. They're like, 'That's not a good idea.' Also the fact that the companions of the Prophet will want to go to war as well, right? It's gonna be a big problem."

So this suggestion of killing says, "Listen, we're not going to just kill him. We have to kill him in a way that we can get away scot-free."

He says, "What we should do is we should gather one representative from each of the major tribes. So, you know, they're sitting in this gathering and there's a representative from all the tribes. We gather one person from all the tribes." And he said, "Perhaps a young person, perhaps a young person. They go together to go murder Muhammad."

Right? And what that accomplishes, and he says also, when they murder him, what should happen is that they should use one dagger, one knife, and the blood that comes from Muhammad should fall on the clothes of each and every one of the young men.

What that accomplishes now is that there's not one person responsible. Pretty much all of the tribes are now responsible. And the tribes, well, he said, "Listen, what we're gonna say at that point is, listen, we didn't sanction this. We weren't okay with this. These were just some young, overzealous men who got fired up and they, we don't condone this behavior, right? It's just a young person who got overzealous and he went and tried to kill, they killed Muhammad."

And so he said, "When we do that, then it is impossible for the tribe of the Prophet to go to war with like eight, nine, ten, eleven, or twelve tribes. It's not gonna happen. The only choice that they will have is to accept the blood money for that murder, right? Yes, it was, they'll say, 'We'll admit it was a mistake. We didn't mean to do it. These young, as you said, these young people got overzealous, you know, so we will gladly give you the blood money for this unjust murder of Muhammad.'''

And he says, "That they will have no choice but to accept the blood money because they're not gonna go to war with twelve tribes. It's not gonna happen." And he says, "In that way," and he says, "Money, money, by the way, money was never an issue for the Quraysh. They would have given any amount of money to get rid of the Prophet. So this money was never an issue. Like, we give the money, we're done with."

And they all decide that that is what they should do. So on that night, in the 13th year of the coming of the Prophet, coming of the message of Islam, they decide to murder the Prophet.

Did you know that this incident means that if they had been successful on that night, perhaps none of us would be sitting in this room today, right? What is the reason? What is the one factor that has brought us all together? What is it? What is it? Why are we all here? Would we have all gathered here if it wasn't for this one factor? What is it? It's our Islam. It is the message of the Prophet. And if they had managed to murder the Prophet on that night, we wouldn't be sitting here today.

The Night of Hijrah: Allah's Protection

So what happened? What happened is that Allah has sent the angel Jibreel to attend that gathering at Darul Nadwa. And the angel Jibreel, he was there. He witnessed what happened. He heard what happened. And then he immediately goes to the Prophet, who at this point doesn't know that they're plotting his murder, especially that they're plotting his murder and they decided to murder him that very night.

That very night, they decided, "We're not gonna wait. We're not gonna say, listen, you know, let's wait a week and plan it out and all." They said, "We need to do this right away. So we made this plan right now, a couple hours from now, let's go to his house and let's murder him."

The angel Jibreel, he was present at that gathering at Darul Nadwa. And as I said, the person was unaware that his murder, like he knew his life was in danger, right? But he didn't know that that very night he could be murdered. So the angel Jibreel goes to the Prophet and says, "You were waiting for a specific command from Allah, for a specific permission from Allah to come to allow you to make Hijrah. Now is the time. So leave now."

And the Prophet gathered his belongings. He gathered his stuff. And as we know, Abu Bakr, he actually accompanied the Prophet on his journey to Medina. He leaves his house. And get this, those 10 or 12 men who are there, bloodthirsty, ready to kill the Prophet, they're standing right in front of him, right? And the Prophet knows why they're there.

What would you have done if that happened to you? You walk out of your house and you see a group of 10 men or 12 men, young men, they have a knife in their hand, and you know they're about to murder you. What would you have done? You would probably run back in your house, close the house, like lock your doors and just like make serious dua, right? I'd be like, "Oh Allah, protect me." Something, you would have freaked out. I would have freaked out, right? If you know somebody's there to murder you, the average reaction would be to freak out.

You know what the Prophet did? He walked right up to them. He picked up sand from the ground and he sprinkled it on top of their heads. Why? Can anyone tell me why? Why would he take that? Why would he take that action?

They don't want to take a guess? Raise your hand. You know the answer? Yeah, to say what? No, did the Prophet know that they cannot see him? Yes or no? What do you guys think? Okay, I'll just clarify this. They

couldn't see him, right? They couldn't see him. But did the person know that they couldn't see him? Yes or no? He didn't know. I said I'm didn't know.

However, what the Prophet knew is that Allah would protect him. Because the permission has come from Allah. If Allah has told him to leave, to go, "This is the time to make Hijrah," then Allah will protect him. And we know that the ayah in Surah Yaseen, which many of us recite, this is, and a lot of the scholars of Tafsir, they mentioned that this ayah is talking about this very incident where Allah says:

وَجَعَلْنَا مِن بَيْنِ أَيْدِيهِمْ سَدًّا وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ سَدًّا فَأَغْشَيْنَاهُمْ فَهُمْ لَا يُبْصِرُونَ "And We put before them a barrier and behind them a barrier and covered them, so they do not see. Reference: Quran, Surah Yaseen 36:9 "

Here Allah tells us of this incident that took place, but it was the firm Iman of the Prophet in which, yes, he found out that they're not able to see him when this ayah was revealed upon the Prophet, right? But at that moment, he had trust in Allah to protect him, right?

And as we know, the angel Jibreel came and told the Prophet. And as we know, the rest of the story, the rest is history. The Prophet ﷺ went through their ranks, right through them, sprinkled, as we said, sprinkled sand on their heads, walked through their ranks and made his Hijrah and escaped to Al-Medina.

The Identity of the Old Man: Iblis

Now, question being: Who was the old man who put all of this in motion, right? Shaytan, the devil. Is this an authentic story? Like the devil just showed up and it's like, "Yeah, let's murder the person?" Yes or no? This is an authentic narration, right? And the scholars don't differ over the fact that it was actually, it was the Shaytan, it was the Shaytan in the form of a man.

So there's a couple things we learned from this story. Number one, we learn that the Shaytan is an actual being created by Allah. We learned that the Shaytan actively works to destroy any type of goodness. And as I said, if he had managed to get the Prophet murdered on that day, then today none of us would have been sitting here, right?

We also learn of some of the abilities of Shaytan. And I don't really have time today to get into all of the abilities of Shaytan. If you're interested in that topic, come take my class on the Shaytan. But Allah has given the Shaytan certain abilities. One of those abilities is, at least in this moment in this time, is to take on the form of a human being, right?

But we also learn that when Allah protects someone, that even the Shaytan cannot harm them.

وَيَمْكُرُونَ وَيَمْكُرُ اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ "And they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners."

starts to get afraid, right? He's like, "Oh man, it may be this guy who takes my title because he's younger, he's faster, and he's strong."

However, when people interview the older boxer and they say, "Hey, listen, there's this new guy, he's pretty young, he's pretty good, what do you think?" What is the older boxer saying? He says, "No way. He will never defeat me. I'm the best of the best. Nobody can defeat me."

Why? Let's be honest here, there's a little bit of insecurity there, right? And likewise, Iblis was extremely insecure. And that is why, when Iblis, and I'm gonna mention some of these things that Iblis says, and sometimes it's hard for us to understand how he can say these completely blasphemous things, right? He swears to Allah and he blames Allah. And we'll talk about this.

You have to realize that this is a being who is extremely insecure. And actually in my class, we actually do a psychological study of the Shaytan, right? But he is a being who is extremely insecure about himself. And so now he's looking at him, he's looking at Adam.

And some narration, the person mentioned that he starts to go around Adam alayhi salam. Like he goes around and around, he goes through him, and he's constantly like observing him, just like the boxer, the older boxer, who may start watching every single fight of the younger boxer, right? Seeing how he moves, becoming obsessed with that person.

And so Iblis actually becomes obsessed with Adam alayhi salam. He cannot deal with the fact that his title may be taken. And this festers for a while, these feelings of jealousy and envy. And actually, the proper way of describing this is actually hasad. The concept of hasad in Islam is when you see something that someone else has, and not only do you want it for yourself, you want that person to not have it, right?

And I'm not sure if there's an English equivalent of this word, but the concept here is hasad. For example, this brother right here, what's your name? Okay, Albab. He's wearing a beautiful tie here, right? Everyone say mashallah. Okay, may Allah bless you and bless your tie and give you many more, right? Okay, he's wearing this beautiful tie here.

If I was like jealous of his tie, perhaps I would say, "That's a nice tie. I want one as well," right? But if I have hasad towards his tie, what I would be thinking or I would be feeling in my heart is, "Why does he have this tie, right? He doesn't deserve that tie. I'm the only one who should have a tie like that, right?"

Those feelings are extremely dangerous. And that is what is known as hasad. We're not only do you want something that someone has, you want to be the only one that has it, and you want them to not have it. And that is what is truly dangerous. And that is what Iblis was suffering from.

You know, the scholars, they discuss this issue: What was the first sin that Iblis committed? They say, was it hasad or was it arrogance? A lot of scholars say arrogance. Some scholars say it was actually jealousy and be or hasad. And I hold the opinion that it was actually hasad, that it all began with hasad. It began with that extreme jealousy where he couldn't stand that perhaps Adam may turn out to be a creation better than him.

And this is how he's feeling now. And he hasn't said anything. No one's talked to him. He hasn't spoken out about this. It's just all happening in his heart.

Until Allah blows life into Adam. And we know at that point, Allah orders the angels and Iblis to make sajda to Adam alayhi salam, right? This is, by the way, not a sajda of worship. This is a sajda of respect. This is a sajda of honor. Allah says, "We have indeed honored the children of Adam."

The creation of Adam alayhi salam is honored. And Allah created Adam with his own hands, as opposed to the jinn. There are many ways in which Allah honored Adam alayhi salam in his creation. Also, the fact that Allah told the angels to make sajda means that Allah honored Adam alayhi salam even above the angels.

And sometimes we don't realize this as mankind. When we debase ourselves, when we disobey Allah, when we put ourselves in these types of situations, when we are, like I said, debasing ourselves, we don't realize that Allah has given us honor. And we ourselves, we take away our honor, subhanAllah, right? But Allah honored the children of Adam alayhi salam.

And so Allah gives the command. And we see this mentioned in many places in the Quran. For example, Surah Al-Kahf, verse 50, Allah says:

"And [mention] when We said to the angels, 'Prostrate to Adam,' and they prostrated, except for Iblis."

Reference: Quran, Surah Al-Kahf 18:50

And Iblis is standing there. He's included within this command, right? The command comes down. And I want you to actually imagine what this looks like. Allah, in Surah Saad, mentions:

"So the angels prostrated - all of them entirely."

Reference: Quran, Surah Saad 38:73

Allah says that the angels, and Allah uses the letter fa here. Fa, by the Arabic, means immediately, right? Allah doesn't say thumma sajadu, he doesn't say wa sajadu, not "and then" or "after that" or "sometime." No, fa means immediately. Immediately the angels, they go into sajda.

Now, this gathering of angels is more amazing than we can even comprehend. But I'm going to try and give you a visual. Imagine the angels standing in front of Allah. The angels are absolutely beautiful beings, right? We know that they are more beautiful than we can imagine. We know that the angels are actually also very large beings.

For example, the Prophet, when he saw the angel Jibreel in his original form, in his true form, the first time, says, "I looked up in the sky and the horizon was covered by just one of the wings of the angel Jibreel," right?

There are narrations that mention the Prophet said that if a person, someone who's proficient at riding horses, if they were to travel the distance of a day and a night on horseback, they would not cover the distance of the wingspan of an angel. Can you imagine this? This dude is just like riding and riding and riding for a full 24 hours. He's going and he cannot cover the distance of a wingspan from one tip to the other. He can't do it.

Another narration mentions 10 days and 10 nights. SubhanAllah, riding for 10 days and 10 nights, he's going, he's going, he's going, he cannot cover the distance of a single angel's wingspan. This is how large the angels are, right? And it's even hard for us to comprehend, but they're very large. And we know they are extremely beautiful.

These huge, majestic, beautiful, awe-inspiring beings are standing in front of Allah, and they're lined up, perfect rows. And I often say, you know, when I say rows of angels, I don't mean, I don't know, some of you are automatically thinking of our rows, like the rows that we have in salah. Our rows suck, man, I'm telling you, right? Brothers always arguing about the line, right? Is it the toes or the heels that go on the line? Until the imam says Allahu Akbar, the people still arguing. And even after the imam says, still some guys saying, "Excuse me, brothers, please excuse me, it's the heels." Animals like, "No, it's the toes." Problems, right?

But subhanAllah, even with those problems, these lines still look good, right? But when I say they suck, I mean compared to the angels, they suck. Compared to the lines of the angels, they're totally lame. But even our lines, even though they're kind of crooked and not really straight or whatever, they look beautiful.

Imagine the rows and the lines of the angels that are perfect. There's not a single inch, not a single millimeter that one angel is in front of the other, right, in terms of the row. And it's not just five rows or 10 rows or 20 rows or 30 rows. It's as far as your eye can see. It's angels, right? You look out and, I don't know if you've ever been in a situation like that where you look out and like your eyesight just stops at a certain point. There's only as far as you can see, and then it's just all blurry and gone after that.

It would be like that, but in the distance, it would just be angels. This type of gathering of angels. And Allah gives the command to make sajda. And the angels immediately fall into sajda. And Allah says, not only do they make sajda, they make sajda all together at the same time.

If you've ever been to a masjid that is very big, very large, usually what happens is that when the takbir is heard, the rows in front, they make sajda, and then the ones behind them, and then the ones behind them, and eventually everyone falls into sajda. I don't know if any of you have been to Mecca or Medina, but I lived in Medina for a very long time. And even that is beautiful. But you know, the rows that sometimes rows in like Hajj, Umrah time, especially Hajj time, rows extend out like almost to the street sometimes. And the people on the street, they're obviously making sajda at least like 5 or 10, 15 seconds after the imam says takbir, because it takes that long for that news to travel all the way back that the imam has made takbir.

But the angels, they heard the commandment, the command, they all heard it at the exact same time. There was no delay in that command. They all heard it, and they all immediately, because the angels, they would never

have even a second of delay in fulfilling the commandment of Allah. So they hear the command of making sajda, and they all fall into sajda. Imagine how that would look, right? Together, this beautiful creation.

You know, as man, as human beings, one of the things that is attractive to our nafs is harmony. And this is why if you've ever seen, um, like choreographed dancing, I'm not telling you to do that now. I'm not telling you to go watch it, right? But if you've ever seen choreographed dancing, there's a reason why it's so beautiful, because we as human beings, we find things done in harmony to be beautiful. That's just the nature of human beings.

This is why if you ever walked into the masjid late and you see everyone in rukur, you almost like pause for a minute, like, "Wow, that's beautiful." And they're like, "Wait, I need to join the prayer," right? But that's because it's a beautiful scene.

That, to the nth degree, with the angels, this perfect harmony in that beautiful scene and in that harmony, everyone has fallen into sajda. Allah says, except for Iblis. He's the only one left standing. Imagine how strange that would look. Everyone falls into sajda and there's one dude who is left standing, right? He's not even as beautiful. He's not anywhere close to as beautiful as the angels. How odd would that look?

Allah says he became arrogant. He became arrogant, and he became amongst the disbelievers at that time. And now what's happening here is that Allah said he became arrogant. And this is, by the way, the reason why many scholars hold the opinion that it was arrogance that was the first sin. But there's something that came before his arrogance. Now is his envy, his jealousy, his hasad.

And now he is asked by Allah, or in another verse, "What has stopped you from making sajda when I've commanded you to do so?" And we hear the excuse. He says, "I am better than him. You created me from fire and you created him from clay."

And I don't, wallahi, I wish I had more time getting to these ayat. But quickly, this is his excuse. In actuality, the excuse he gives, the reasoning that he gives, makes no sense. Because, and this is something we do in my class, we actually take a look at fire and clay, and we ask the question, is fire really better than clay? Are there ways in which clay is better than fire? Yes or no? Yes.

We write 20 ways in my seminar in which clay is better than fire. And I got this exercise actually from Imam Ghazali, who when he is talking about this ayah, he says, "Actually, Iblis, his argument is not even valid." He said, "I'm better than him, right? Because you created me from fire and you created from clay. Therefore, I don't deserve to make sajdah to him." And actually, his reasoning is not even true.

So a couple things here. Number one, Iblis was the first person to use his own reasoning to reject a commandment from Allah. And you know, we do this a lot, that a command comes from Allah, we know Allah has ordered us to do something, and we say, "Well, is this really correct, though? Is this really right? Like, is this really, it doesn't really, I don't really understand how this makes sense or whatever."

The first person to do that, the first one to do that, was Iblis. And this is why for us, and you can take this as a principle, right, in Islam, we don't believe as Muslims that there is ever a contradiction between reasoning and

revelation. And this is, I know, you know, the atheists usually bring this up, right? That there's all that, there's this issue between, uh, science and religion or reasoning and revelation.

As Muslims, we don't believe that to be the case. There will never be a contradiction between reasoning and revelation. If you find a contradiction, right, it is for a couple reasons. Either your reasoning is not sound, you need to go back and check your reasoning. If you think there's, if you're finding a contradiction between revelation from the revelation of Allah and your own reasoning, go check your reasoning. Very possibly, something's wrong with your reasoning.

Or the revelation is either being misunderstood, or you're misquoting revelation, or it's not authentic, all right? If those things are not there, there will never be a contradiction between the two, right?

So if you take a look at this instance here, where there seems to be a contradiction between reasoning and revelation, by the way, the reasoning, the revelation here is the command from Allah to tell him to make sajda. The reasoning here is, he says, "I'm better than him because I'm created from fire, he's made from clay."

Is there anything wrong with the revelation here? Yes or no? Is it being misunderstood? Is it like, "Well, I don't know what do you mean by sajdah? Do you mean like lay down or do you mean?" He knows what sajdah means. He fully understands the revelation, right? Is there any, is it not authentic? It's coming directly from Allah. There's no question of whether it's authentic.

Where's the problem here? The reasoning. As we said, his reasoning is not correct, right?

So number one, he's the first person to use his intellect to reject authentic and clear revelation.

Number two, Iblis was actually the first racist. He was the first racist. He was the first person to look at his creation and look at his physical attributes and say, "Because of the way I was created, I am better than this person," right? He said, "Because I've been created from fire, I am better than Adam alayhi salam. He's been created from clay."

In actuality, we as Muslims, we know that the principle is:

"Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you."

Reference: Quran, Surah Al-Hujurat 49:13

The most noble amongst you are who? The Arab? The Americans? Pakistanis? The Egyptians? Who's the most noble amongst mankind? Who is it? What gives you nobility? Taqwa. The most noble amongst you are those who have the most taqwa.

And you know what? That is fair, because taqwa can be attained by anyone, regardless of the color of your skin, regardless of your background, regardless of your gender, regardless of where you're from, regardless of your economic status. None of it matters, because taqwa is an even playing field. And so Allah says, "Don't think," Allah is saying, "Don't think anything but your taqwa, your piety, raises you up in status."

Iblis didn't understand this.

Iblis didn't understand this. He was the first person to reject the commandment of Allah. And now, just to cut this story short, I know I have like 10 minutes left, and I promise I'd give you a couple minutes for Q&A. To cut the story short, inshallah, right, so he refuses to make sajda. And by the way, many, many, many other lessons that can be derived from his refusal to make sajda, but we don't have the time.

He refuses to make sajda, and Allah tells him to leave Paradise, leave the gathering of the angels. Allah says, and this is in Surah Al-A'raf, verse number 13, Allah says:

"Descend from it, for it is not for you to be arrogant therein. So get out; indeed, you are of the debased."

"Descend from it. It is not for you to be arrogant here." Arrogance takes a person away from Allah, in this case, even physically a person is distanced from Allah. And this is why the Prophet said in this hadith that we've all heard, that a person who has even the weight of a mustard seed of arrogance will not enter Paradise, right?

So a person who has that arrogance, they'll be distanced from Jannah, from Allah. And even Allah here reminds Iblis and says, "Listen, this arrogance of yours, it cannot be in this place. This is Jannah. This is Paradise. You cannot be arrogant here. So exit from it. Indeed, you're amongst those who are debased."

And then Iblis turns around and does something very strange. He turns around and he actually makes dua to Allah. He says:

"[Iblis] said, 'My Lord, then reprieve me until the Day they are resurrected.' "

He says, "My Lord, give me respite." By the way, everyone knows what respite means? I've given this talk before and I keep saying respite and like some people just like, they came to me after the talk, like, "Sheikh, what does respite mean?" I'm like, okay, next I'm going to translate it fully.

What does respite mean? Time delay, right? Basically, he's saying, "Oh Allah," he actually says, "My Lord, give me respite. Allow me to live until the day on which they are resurrected."

And real quickly, what is happening here is that, and this is actually amazing, because one of the tricks of Shaytan is to come to a person who is sinful, who is far away from Allah, and to convince them that they have no hope. That you're just too sinful for Allah to forgive you. You're too sinful for Allah to accept your repentance. You are this and you are that. Don't even bother.

But for himself, he knew, even though he directly refused the commandment of Allah, and Allah said that he is amongst the disbelievers, Allah kicked him out of Paradise, Allah even said, "Upon you is My curse until the

day of resurrection." Even with that, he turned around and said, "My Lord, give me a respite until the day on which they are resurrected."

Because he knows that no matter how sinful you are, Allah will, number one, forgive you, and He can answer your dua. And yet it's so ironic that he uses this very tactic. He convinces us that we're too sinful for Allah to accept our dua.

And actually, Allah answers his dua. Allah says:

"You are amongst those who have been given respite."

Now, I just want to look at this word real quickly, and I know I'm short on time, I apologize for that. Allah, and this is a question that the scholars ask, they say, "Why is it that when Allah answers his dua," he says, "Oh my Lord, allow me to live until the day of day of judgment," that Allah says, "You are amongst those who have been given respite."

Why didn't Allah say, "You have been given respite," right? What's the wisdom behind that?

And one of the things that the mufassirun, they mention, is that Allah here mentions a category of people, a category of people who have a similar fate to Iblis. Meaning Allah allows them to live because Allah doesn't punish anyone unjustly. So in order for this person to be punished, they will live out their life and increase themselves in sins.

So actually, allowing Iblis to live, and by the way, one of the things we discussed in my seminar is, what is the wisdom behind allowing Iblis to live? One of the wisdoms is that actually allowing him to live is a form of punishment for him, because the longer he lives, the more sins he will accumulate, and the more he will be held accountable for the Day of Judgment, and the more he'll be punished.

Amongst mankind, there are people who are very similar to this. You know, people often ask the question, they say, "Why is it that God would allow a tyrant to live, right? Somebody who murders people, kills innocent women and children, and Allah just allows him to live?" I mean, sometimes people say, like, "Man, he's 80 years old. Like, when is he gonna die? Like, we're done with it. Please, like, Allah, take his life," right?

And a person may say, "How is it, how is it fair that God allows this tyrant to live, yet Allah took the life of a young child?" Just because you don't understand the wisdom behind that doesn't mean there isn't wisdom.

One of the wisdoms is that Allah allows that tyrant to live as a form of punishment, because the longer he stays alive or she stays alive, the more they will have to be accountable for. And Iblis actually has the longest life. We know he's going to be alive until the Day of Resurrection. Hence, he will have amongst the worst punishment in the Akhirah.

And so Allah says, "I have a couple minutes left, real quick."

Iblis's Vow to Mislead Mankind

After Allah gives him respite, you know what Iblis does? He turns around and he threatens mankind. Real quick.

And now, what's your name again? I apologize. Do you have a car? What kind of car do you drive? A Nissan Altima? Let's say Albab gives me a ride today in his Nissan Altima. I tell him, "Listen, I need to go buy something or whatever." He says, "Okay, I'll take you in my Nissan Altima."

I get in the car, and as we get in the car, I say, "You know, I think you're a really annoying guy, right? Like, I just, I can't stand you, right? I look at you and I just, I'm just so mad, right? So just like, don't talk to me. You're super annoying, right?"

And Albab, I would imagine, would be like, "What is this guy's problem?" All right? And he'd be like, he'd be hurt. Anyone would be hurt. I'd be hurt if somebody said that to me, let alone like a speaker, right, telling me that, "I hate you. You're annoying."

But because Albab, he's a nice guy, he remains patient, and he doesn't say anything. And he gives me a ride in his Altima. And we go and we come back. And I'm the whole time, I'm just like berating him, all right? I'm talking trash about him, like, "I hate you. I can't stand you. You're annoying," all this stuff.

And then we get back to my hotel, and I'm like, "Hey, listen, um, I know I've been mean to you and all, but, uh, can I borrow your car?"

Yeah, exactly. He's just like, "No way," right?

But as I said, Albab, he's a very nice guy. He's a very nice guy. He's very patient. And he thinks to himself, he said, "You know, Allah will reward me. Even though he's been very sad to me, has been very insulting towards me, but I will bite my tongue and I will be patient. And I will actually let him borrow my car," right?

Now imagine he lets me borrow his car, and I take the keys from him. Do you have your keys on you by any chance? You do not? Okay, he's like, "I don't have my keys." I take his keys, and I'm like, "Hey, man, thanks for your keys. But guess what? I'm gonna now take your car and I'm gonna smash it into the closest wall I see. I'm gonna take a knife, I'm gonna slash your tires, and I'm gonna take a bat and I'm gonna smash your windows."

Isn't that insane? You would say, "Sir, this name has lost his mind. He is insane."

Iblis acted in a very similar manner. May Allah bless you and your car and give you more. I mean, everyone say, "Ameen." And protect your car.

Iblis does the same thing. He disobeys Allah. He rejects the commandment of Allah, right? He refuses to prostrate. And actually, he says, he claims, "I'm better than him because you created him from fire and you

created me from clay," and all this kind of stuff. And then Allah says, "Get out."

And he says, "Wait, oh Allah, Rabbi, my Lord," right? Just like I said to him, "Hey, man, you know, I've been mean to you, but let me borrow your car," right? "Oh my Lord, let me live until the day of resurrection."

And then he says, "Okay." And then just like I said to his car, he starts making threats. He says:

"[Iblis] said, 'Because You have put me in error, I will surely sit in wait for them on Your straight path.'"

He says, "I swear by the error that you have put me in." Who is the "you" here? Allah. He's telling Allah, "Oh Allah, I swear by the error that you have put me in, I will sit and wait for them upon Your straight path," meaning the path of guidance.

And this shows us, a lot of times we as Muslims, we think we're safe from Shaytan, right? Sometimes when somebody's considered a practicing Muslim or a religious Muslim or whatever, they think the battle is over with Shaytan. Iblis says, "I will sit and wait for them upon the straight path."

And this is why, no matter how much knowledge someone has, no matter how big of a scholar they are, no matter what they may be, no one is safe from the Shaytan. Shaytan doesn't give up with anyone.

Imam Ahmad, rahimahullah, on his dying bed, he said, "As I was dying, the Shaytan was coming to me and telling him, 'Yeah, you've won. You've won, Imam Ahmad.'" He kept saying, "La ba'd, la ba'd, la ba'd." He kept saying, "No, not yet. Not yet. The battle is not over yet."

But he doesn't stop there. He then goes on to say:

"Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them grateful [to You]."

He says, "I will come to them from in front, from behind, from the right, from the left. And you will find that most of them are not grateful," right?

And I end with this, I end with this ayah, in jama, end with this ayat, in jalal ta'ala. This is his attack plan. Like I said, I don't really have the time to get into all of this, but he is pretty much saying, "I'm going to come to them from every direction, every direction."

There are two directions left out of this ayah. And scholars discuss this issue. They say, "Why is it that he doesn't mention the top and the bottom, right?" Some people say, "Oh, when you make dua, you turn up, right? Mercy, guidance descends from above." And some people say, "When you're in sajda, you're in the closest place to Allah. Allah said he is the closest to his slaves and his servants when you're in sajda."

That's not the reason. That's one of the explanations given by the scholars, but there's actually a deeper reasoning to that. And this is why, this is the reason why we study the psychology of Shaytan in my class.

But one of the reasons why he doesn't mention the top or the bottom, because what he's trying to get across here is that, you know, back in the day, if a person found themselves on the battlefield, they would have to worry about pretty much four directions. You have to worry about what's in front of you, what's behind you, what's on your right, and what's on your left, right? You have to protect yourself from these four directions. You don't have to worry about the top or the bottom, especially back then. Nowadays with drones and stuff like that, and Allah protect us, right? But back in the day, you don't have to worry about the top or the bottom.

And so what Iblis is saying here, he's saying, "I'm going to come to them from every direction that they would anticipate that I could come to them, right?" Yes, he is, yes, he's conniving. Yes, he has many strategies. But in actuality, us as mankind, we can actually anticipate his attacks.

But Iblis says, he says, "However, even though I will come to them, yeah, I'm going to come to them every direction, but they can anticipate that. But even though they can anticipate my attacks, you will find that most of them are not grateful."

What are they not grateful for? In a general sense, yes, it's Islam. Yes, it's guidance and so on and so forth. Specifically, what mankind is not grateful for is that Allah has given us the means to protect ourselves from the Shaytan.

But as I said in the beginning of this session, most of us live our lives oblivious to the Shaytan. We don't even take the measures to protect ourselves. We don't even spend moments out of our day to protect ourselves.

Sister, can you give me two minutes? You know what? Mine, inshallah. I just want to close with this one final, and I really apologize to take your time, one final, one final hadith. And this kind of, it just clarifies what I'm talking about here.

Hadith: The Shaytan Flows Like Blood

There is a hadith of Safiyyah, radiallahu ta'ala anha. Safiyyah, it's authentic hadith. I believe it is in Sahih Muslim, if I'm not mistaken. Don't quote me on that, but it is indeed authentic.

Safiyyah, she says, "One night I went to go visit the Prophet as he was making I'tikaf in the masjid," meaning he was spending the night in the masjid to worship Allah. She says, "I went to go visit him." Now there's a wife of the Prophet. She spent some time with him in the masjid. And as a couple hours, some time goes by, she's, you know, she's done visiting him, and now she wants to go home.

And the Prophet tells her that he will walk her home. He will accompany her back to the house. It's like the middle of the night now. And so they now leave the masjid. They're walking. Now this is the streets of Medina. It's the middle of the night. It's dark and all that. And they come across, they see two men.

And Safiyyah, radiallahu ta'ala, she actually said there were two Ansari men. She says, "We see two Ansari men. And as soon as they see us, they begin to say, they begin to walk quickly." So they basically make eye contact and they're like, "Oops." And they begin to like walk away really quickly.

And then the Prophet begins to say out loud, the Prophet begins to say out loud, "This is Safiyyah. This is your mother." As we know, the wives of the Prophet are mothers of the believers. He says, "This is your mother. This is," and then he identifies exactly who she is. He says, "This is Safiyyah, the daughter of Huyayy."

And the men begin to say, "SubhanAllah, SubhanAllah, ya Rasulallah, SubhanAllah."

You know, people read this hadith and you're like, "Why are they saying SubhanAllah? What's going on here?" Let me tell you what's going on here. What happens is, what happened is that when the Prophet identified her, they begin to say, "SubhanAllah, oh Messenger of Allah." What they're saying is, "SubhanAllah, we would never think that you're out in the middle of the night with a woman that is not related to you, that is not your mahram," right? They're saying, "SubhanAllah, that's not what we're thinking."

And then the Prophet, he replies to them. He said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari)

"Indeed, Shaytan flows through the son of Adam like the flowing of blood. And I feared that he would put something [evil] into your hearts."

He said, "Most certainly the Shaytan flows through man like the flowing of blood." He said, "I feared that the Shaytan would put an evil thought, put a bad thought into your hearts," right?

So, you know, people read this narration and they often pose the question, some people are afraid to pose a question, but they're like, "Well, why didn't the Prophet give those two companions," and yes, they were companions, they were from the Ansar, right, noble companions, "why didn't the person give them the benefit of the doubt, right? Why didn't he say, why didn't he, why did he assume that they may think that he is doing something bad, that he's out," and this is the Messenger of Allah, right, "that he's out in the middle of the night with a woman that he's not related to?"

In actuality, if you really look at this hadith, what you realize is that the person was actually giving them the benefit of the doubt. Because what he's saying here is, in essence, "I don't fear that you would have a bad thought about me. What I fear is that the Shaytan would put a bad thought into your hearts."

And so now, by informing the companions of the presence of Shaytan, he is teaching them how to protect themselves. He is teaching them that in a moment like that, it is very important to be aware of Shaytan so you can fight those whisperings of Shaytan. Because Shaytan flows through mankind just like the flowing of blood.

And so point being, we need to be aware of Shaytan to be able to fight the Shaytan. And subhanAllah, that was the Messenger of Allah. If someone can have a bad thought about the Messenger, if the Shaytan can put a bad

thought in the heart of a Sahabi, those who loved the person more than we can imagine, about the Messenger of Allah, then what about some one of us?

You know what? When people make bad assumptions about others, and we see it happening all the time, right? People are often shocked, right? When their friends or family or a loved one or someone makes a bad assumption about them, people like, "Oh, like it just, it tears them apart. Like their world is just crushed. Like, 'I thought you were my friend,' right?" Like, and it hurts. Wallahi, if you've been in that situation, you know it hurts when somebody like spreads a rumor about you or says something about you and you're like, "Where did this come from?"

Wallahi, this was the Messenger of Allah. I'm never surprised because I know that the Shaytan floods the mind, it floods, the Shaytan floods the heart with whispering. And if the person doesn't say, "I seek refuge in Allah from the Shaytan," if the person doesn't actively, proactively protect themselves from the Shaytan, then it's no surprise that people make these bad assumptions, let alone about normal people, even about scholars and imams and sheikhs and public figures and things like that. We've seen it happen and we see it happen all the time.

Closing Dua

I ask Allah to protect us from the whisperings of Shaytan. I ask Allah to make us of those who hear beneficial knowledge and act upon it.

Lastly, I sincerely apologize to everyone whose time I took. I didn't mean to go over.

وَاللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ

And Allah knows best.

End of Khutbah