Doorways of shaytan into a man's heart - Part 5

Shaytan does not come to the human and say, ‘Leave this good deed and do this evil deed in order to make your life in this world and the next a miserable one.’ If he behaved in that manner no one would follow him. Instead, he uses many ways to deceive the slaves of Allah, including:

1. Making evil look good – He makes the false appear in the form of truth. And he makes what is true appearing like falsehood. He always bewitches the mind until he can deceive the person. No one is safe from his bewitching except whomsoever Allah wills. He makes good looking to him what harms him the most, until he imagines that it is the most beneficial act for himself. And he makes him flee from the most beneficial act until he thinks it is something harmful to him.

2. Going to extremes – Allah never orders anything except that Shaytan takes two contradictory stance towards it; either shortcoming and negligence or overzealousness and exaggeration. It does not matter [to him] by which of these two mistakes he becomes victorious over the slave. He comes to the heart of the slave and examines it. If he finds in it listlessness and looking for loopholes, he deals with him from that vantage. He strikes him with laziness, listlessness and lethargy. He opens for him the door to reinterpretations hopes and so forth until the slave may not fulfill anything of what he is commanded. If he finds in the slave’s heart alertness, seriousness, desire to work and potential, Satan despairs from attacking him through the above means. Instead, he orders him to strive even harder. He convinces him that what he is doing is not sufficient for him. His ambition is to be greater than that. He must work more than the other workers. He should not sleep when they sleep. He should not break his fast when they break their fasts. He should not rest when they rest. If one of them washes his hands and face three times, he should wash them seven times. If one makes wudu for prayer, he must make ghusl. [He orders him to] similar other acts of exaggeration and extremism. He makes him go to extremes and beyond the limits. He makes him stray from the straight path in the same way that he makes the first person fall short of the straight path and not approach it. Satans intention for both is to keep them from the straight path: the first by making him not come close or near to it and the second by making him pass it and go beyond it. Many of creation are misled by these two strategies. There is no escape from them except deep knowledge, faith and the strength to fight Satan and stay along the middle path.’

If you feel that you are being affected by this waswaas, say, “Aamantu Billaahi wa Rasoolihi (I believe in Allaah and His Messenger).”
Try to stop thinking about that waswas as much as possible, and keep busy with things that will distract you from it.

Keep on turning to Allah in all situations, and ask Him for help, and beseech Him, and ask Him to make you steadfast until death, and cause you to die doing righteous deeds.

Wassalam
-Zakia Usmani
http://www.facebook.com/zakiaaftabusmani