Defeating Tactics of Shaytaan - Corrected Khutba

Defeating Tactics of Shaytaan - Ustadah Yasmin Mogahed

"In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

"All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. May peace and blessings be upon the noblest of prophets and messengers, our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and companions, all of them. To proceed:"

Introduction: The Importance of Awareness

This is a really, really important topic which we don't discuss enough. And actually, if we want to talk about the tactics of Shaytan, if we want to talk about the tools of Shaytan, one of the most effective tactics of Shaytan, one of the most powerful tools of Shaytan is in fact the very reality that we don't know and we're not conscious of Shaytan. It's like if a robber wants to come into your house, that robber's greatest strength is the fact that you're completely unaware, that you're completely unaware of his presence and of his tactics.

In fact, you don't even know that he exists in reality. You don't acknowledge his existence and that makes the robber super effective because he can come in and out and you don't even realize it. That's one of our weaknesses is that we don't have enough, as the Shaykh was saying, enough consciousness of the influence of Shaytan and then we don't protect ourselves.

So that's why I want to say, alhamdulillah, that we are having these sessions and we are focusing on this. Now this isn't to say that we become obsessed. You know, I know it doesn't mean we're... When people used to tell jinn stories, I would leave the room, Allah, Allah, our lives, right? But it doesn't... I am also not talking about the other extreme where we sometimes become obsessed with these kinds of things and we miss the point.

Finding the Healthy Balance

Let's find a healthy balance and that healthy balance is, yes, Shaytan exists, yes, jinn exists, yes, the Shayateen are real, yes, their influence is real. However, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala Akbar, okay? Allahu Akbar. Allah is greater than everything else and that includes the Shaytan and his army, all of them.

Allah is greater than all of them. So what I want us to do is while we are aware of our enemy and while we are aware that we are in a battlefield, we should also be aware of who's in charge at the end of the day. And it is Allah.

And part of our test in dealing with Shaytan is actually where do we put our trust? And do we believe that Allah is greater? Who has more control? Who has more power? Even if the entire world, as Allah tells us, even if the entire world were to gather together to harm you with something, they could not harm you except by what Allah has written for you. And if the entire world had come together to benefit you with something, they could not benefit you except in what Allah has written for you. This is part of our aqidah

to understand that while yes, we have enemies, yes, we have enemies internally and externally, seen and unseen.

The Role of Shaytan: Jinn and Humans

And by the way, the role of Shaytan, the role and purpose of Shaytan, the focus of Shaytan, the goal of Shaytan can actually be carried out by both jinn and inns. So that's why when I say jinn and inns, I'm talking about jinn and I'm talking about human beings. You know, in Surah An-Nas, when we ask for protection by Allah, from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, by Allah from the Shayateen, and Allah says, we say:

"From the evil of the retreating whisperer - Who whispers [evil] into the breasts of mankind - From among the jinn and mankind."

We ask for protection from al-waswas, the one who whispers and then retreats, right? That's all we can do is put the idea in your head and then, you know, hides in the corner and makes you think it was your idea.

Makes you think that it's actually you who thinks that. But he is whispering, that's why he whispers and then he retreats. He whispers and then he hides so that you think it's you.

And you start to think there's something wrong with you. But we have to understand that there's an external source of whispering. It's not even you.

But he whispers and he retreats. From jinn and people. We have to be aware that there are people who actually carry out and help in the mission of shaytan.

That's to make us conscious of our company as well. Our company, among the people, among those we can see, also is important. Because the shayateen and the whispering of the shayateen can come from both.

You know, that whispering, that mission can be carried out by both humans and jinn. Make sense? So there are human beings who almost embody that shayateen qualities. And we have to be conscious also of our company with regards to human beings as well.

Because they can also affect us. And that whispering that we ask protection from Allah, by Allah from, is from both jinn and human beings. So that whispering itself is something we have to be conscious of.

Shaytan's Dedication to His Mission

Now, the shaytan has nothing really else to do. You know, I was giving a lecture in Malaysia, like two seconds ago, and I was saying that the shaytan, if you want to learn about ikhlas, study the shaytan. He's so devoted to his mission, the mission that the shaykh talked about, the mission of attacking us on the straight path, the mission of coming at us from the front and from the back and from the right and from the left.

He's got nothing else to do. So what we have to realize is we have a very skilled opponent, but that opponent also is not undefeatable, is skilled but also weak. And this is something Allah tells us, Allah tells us that his plot is weak, but he is focused.

You know, it's like, he doesn't take a break, and that's our problem, is that when we are, we think, you know, like he said, you know, once you become religious, once you become practicing, and if you think that you're now safe from the shaytan, then you're actually already, he's going to win that battle. Notice in the ayah, something important, the shaytan says that I will attack them on where? He doesn't say I'll attack them outside the nightclub, right? He doesn't say I'll attack them, you know, in Vegas while they're gambling. He says I'll attack them on your straight path.

You see where he's attacking? He's going to put in more effort to attack those who are trying to be on the straight path because that's where you require more energy. If someone's already off the path, it doesn't take as much energy to misguide them, right? It doesn't take as much energy, as much focus, as much army to get them off the path. So he, in fact, will put in more attacks and more skilled and more mind games and just more effort on those who are actually trying to be on the straight path.

We have to actually protect ourselves more and the more that you, the more good you try to do, like think of it like this, the more good you try to do, you have to also equally protect yourself from shaytan. So the more, the more you're trying to get closer to Allah, the more you have to protect yourself from shaytan and from the deception of shaytan. Shaytan will try to go to those people who have knowledge, will try to go to those people who are in the public eye and he will come at people in different ways.

So what I'm going to do right now is just talk about just a few of his tools, a few of his tactics and then how we can defeat them inshallah.

One of the tactics and realize that when you say that someone's coming at you from your front and from your back and from your right and from the left, this is to indicate that he's going to use all different types of pathways. If you close the front door, he'll come from the, from the back door. If you, if you close the back door, he'll come in from the window. All right, what that means is that he, he's good at, he's good at what he does. He's, he's, he's relatively good at what he does.

So he doesn't just come at you and say, you know what, I think you should just become a Christian. I mean, he's not going to be like, you know, you should just leave Islam straight away. Right. Or you should just stop praying. If somebody is praying, I mean, he's not going to come at the scholar and be like tomorrow, you know, you should just leave Islam because it's probably not, that's, that's, that's probably not going to happen. He's going to come out in a more sophisticated way, obviously.

First Tactic: The Perfection Trap

So number one, the first tactic I want to discuss is this idea of perfection. This is actually interesting because the idea of a religious perfection or the idea of human perfection, I will actually categorize that as a tool of shaitan. The reason is that when we, and you're going to be like, but that's weird, right? Because this is something, unfortunately we teach, like even, even if we don't explicitly teach it, we implicitly teach it in our religious teachings is that you're supposed to be perfect.

That a religious person means that they're a perfect person, almost as if a sinless person, you're never supposed to slip, you're never supposed to make mistakes. And so for you to be good, you have to be perfect. Somewhere along the line, we've equated good, like good equals perfect.

That in and of itself, I'm actually going to categorize as a tool of shaitan. You know why? I'll tell you why I'm going to categorize that as a tool of shaitan. Because number one, as human beings, we aren't perfect and we were not created to be perfect.

We, we do commit sins and Allah didn't make a mistake. Allah created us with a specific nature for a specific purpose. And if he had wanted us to be sinless, we would have been angels.

There's, there is something called sinless creation, but that's not what he created. This, this creation of jinn and inns are not, are not like angels, nor were they intended to be like angels. Make sense? So Allah made us the way we are for a reason.

That's the first thing we have to understand. There's a hadith that says:

(Tirmidhi 2499)

"All of the children of Adam will make mistakes, will sin, will slip. But the best of them are those who repent."

The first part is important here that we understand that this is part of the nature of the human being. Now, why is that so important to understand? I'll tell you why. And I'll tell you why not understanding that becomes a tool of shaitan.

Two Consequences of Believing in Perfection

The reason is that if I think I'm supposed to be perfect, one of two things will happen. Okay? One of two things will happen. When I see myself as perfect, I got a big problem. What's that called? Arrogance. It's called actually, it's more than just arrogance. In English, we have arrogance, but in Arabic, there's different, there's different shades of arrogance.

One is called ghurur. And ghurur means self-deception. It means that I'm measuring myself different than I actually am. Okay? So I think something about myself, but I'm actually deceived. It's a, it's like a measuring of myself higher than I am. That's ghurur.

So if I think I'm perfect, I'm actually, I have a disease of my, of the heart called ghurur, arrogance or self- deception. So either one of two things will happen. I either, I feel like I'm on top of my game.

You know what I mean? Like I just started, I just started getting into the deen, you know? And you know, when people first start getting into the deen, they're like hardcore, you know? Like spiritual steroids. And it's awesome, right? They're on a spiritual high. That's when, you know, you're like on point.

You know, you're on point with everything or you think so. You feel like you are. You know, your clothing changes and your behavior changes and you're, you know, you're praying.

Maybe you're doing PM. You got your hijab. You got your short pants and big beard and stuff like that. You got it all. And now, and now you think that you're perfect or you think that, you know, you don't got issues, but everyone else does. Right? So I'm perfect and everyone else needs my help.

So now you become, you join the haram police. This, now when I say haram police, what I mean by this, I don't, I know a deen on nasiha, sister. I know that. I'm not talking about nasiha at this point. I'm talking about self-righteousness, okay? I'm talking about what happens when we become deceived and think that I have no issues. I'm perfect.

So now my job is to help the little people. And when I say to help the little people, what I mean is I'm actually looking down on others. It's not about helping someone because I love, yes, alhamdulillah, I love them. But it doesn't just become out of concern. It becomes out of arrogance, out of self-righteousness. Because I feel like I'm better and I need to, you know, help others because I'm higher.

The Reality of Guidance as a Gift

That in and of itself is because of the deception that I thought I was perfect or that it was even possible for me to be perfect. All right? So that was the one, number one is believing that I'm perfect when I'm on top of my game or I see myself as on top of my game. But let me just say one thing about being on top of your game.

Number one thing about, the thing about being on top of your game is if you're on top of your game, meaning, say you're praying, alhamdulillah, you're reading Quran, you're, you know, you're staying away from the fahsha and the haram and you're dressed properly and everything like that. Is that because of you or is that because of Allah? It's because of Allah. It isn't because you're awesome and your neighbor's not.

That's actually not the reason. The reason that you're praying is because Allah has guided you and Allah has gifted you with salah. The reason you're saying la ilaha illallah and someone else is saying something else is because Allah has guided you and gifted you.