Influence | Reflections On Surah Al A'raaf

Introduction: The Theme of Influence

Alif Lam Mim Saad. There is a Book that has been sent down to you, so that there is no discomfort in your breast from it, that you may warn thereby, and a Reminder for the believers.

Follow that which has been sent down to you from your Lord, and follow not besides Him any allies. Little do you remember.

And how many a town have We destroyed, and Our punishment came upon it plainly. And what was their call when Our punishment came upon them, except that they said, "Verily, we were wrongdoers." So We will surely question those to whom it was sent, and We will surely question the messengers. And We will surely relate to them with knowledge, and We were not absent.

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon our Prophet, our Beloved, and the pleasure of our eyes, and our role model, Muhammad, and upon his family and companions.

Influence and influencers is the theme of today's talk. And I always prefer to look at such subjects — any subject — from the lens of the Qur'an. And today we'll be doing it from the lens of a particular surah of the Qur'an, Surah Al-A'raf.

What is Al-A'raf?

One thing I will give you all a caveat and a disclaimer beforehand is that my talks tend to be interactive. So if I ask a question, it's not a rhetorical question — I'm actually expecting a response from you guys.

What does Al-A'raf mean? What is Al-A'raf?

Al-A'raf is the name of a mountain. And the location of that mountain is in Jannah — in paradise. It is the name of a mountain in paradise. And the people who are on this mountain are people whose good deeds and their sins were equal. When they put their deeds on the scale, the scales were equal. And Allah has a special place for them in paradise.

We're going to come to why this particular name was chosen for the surah and what is the significance of that. Because the name of a surah gives you an indication. The surah is over 20 pages long. But why was that name chosen? Because the climax, the crux of the whole surah revolves around this story — a conversation that takes place on this mountain. And we're going to get to that conversation, but there is first a build-up.

The Running Theme: Influence

In Surah Al-A'raf, one of the running themes and threads throughout the surah is the theme of influence. Every one of us here is influenced by various factors and players in our lives — our parents, our friends, our company, our teachers, society, colleagues, leaders, politicians, celebrities, the media. These are all the influences in our lives.

Any human being born on this earth is influenced by all of these sources — to different degrees. Some people are more influenced by one than the other. Now, which influence does Allah want to be the greatest influence in your life? The influence of revelation. This Book. Revealed to you through the Prophet Muhammad. And through the actions of the Messenger. Allah wants this to be the greatest influence in your life.

You might get it through a colleague. You might get it through a teacher. You might get it through a friend. But you know what the problem is? Influence is a battlefield. You have two good influences in your life, but you have ten negative influences. Who's going to win? And where do you make the decision of what you get influenced by? It's in here — in the mind and the heart. Your mind and heart is actually a battlefield of influences.

Surah Al-A'raf — Allah goes through the major influences. He mentions one, two, three influences. And then He gives an analogy and a story to help you understand: how do I deal with all these influences in my life?

The First Influencer: Iblis

The first influence that Allah is going to talk about is the influence that nobody mentioned — but it is so important. Allah says:

"I created you and I shaped you, and I told the angels: prostrate to Adam. They all prostrated except Iblis. He said, I refuse to be amongst those who prostrate."

I'm going to skip to the first influencer in human history. Who was the first influencer in the history of humanity? Iblis — the devil himself.

Allah gives a simple command to Adam:

Adam, you and your wife — live in Jannah, live in paradise. Eat from whatever you wish, but don't come close to this tree, because then you will be of the wrongdoers. This is Allah's influence, Allah's commandment, Allah's inspiration, Allah's instruction to Adam. Do whatever you want, but just this one — don't come near it.

You and me — or anybody else — would think to ourselves: surely with so many options, this won't be tempting for me. But you know what actually happens? This is the only one I'm tempted by. Try it with kids — do an experiment. Psychologists at Stanford did an experiment with kids. You give kids five toys, you say play with all these toys but don't play with this one. You leave the room. What happens to the kids? They all jump on that toy you told them not to.

That is the psychological premise:

الْمَمْنُوعُ مَرْغُوبٌ — the prohibited is desirable. The more it's out of reach, the more it's desirable.

Now, this desire Allah created within every human being — the desire for what's prohibited, the desire for what you can't have, the desire for what's out of reach. That is within us. But now the influencer comes and he starts to entice you, seduce you, and make it look more and more appealing. So he comes:

Shaitaan comes and he whispers to them and says: "The only reason Allah told you don't eat from this tree is because if you eat from this tree, you'll become angels — you'll get a promotion — or you'll stay here forever."

The End Goal of Shaitaan: Stripping Away Shame

But what is the agenda of Shaitaan? He's influencing, but what's his long game? He doesn't want Adam just to eat from the tree. That's just the first step. His end goal — and this is what the Qur'an says — he wants Adam and Hawa to lose their clothes. He wants their clothes to be stripped off so they are exposed. He wants them to expose themselves.

This is actually something much more dangerous and much more sinister than doing something prohibited, than disobeying Allah. He wants them to lose their sense of shame. That's the end goal. If he can get you to lose your sense of shame, then you can do anything wrong after that. There's nothing to stop you.

I'll give you a simple day-to-day analogy. You're at school, you're at college, you're at university with your mates. You're standing around them in a circle. Everyone's cussing, so you decide — because that influence is there — to blend in and be cool, and you start cussing as well. Your mom walks into the school. What happens all of a sudden? You stop. What happened? You have a sense of shame from your mom. If you lose that sense of shame and you start cussing in front of your mom, it's game over for your character. It's only downhill from there.

So the devil's objective and his agenda is to make us lose our sense of shame. Strip away the clothes. Strip away the protective measures. Make human beings feel okay doing shameless acts in public. That's the end goal of Shaitaan, because if he gets there, then you can disobey Allah in whatever way you can. All he needs to do is work on this one thing — destroy your sense of shame.

The Style of Shaitaan's Influence: Slow and Subtle

He promises them, "I am a very sincere advisor to you." Now, what is the style of Shaitaan's influence? When you have influences online, you don't change your mind overnight. These influencers — they're trying to send you a message, trying to change your worldview, trying to change how you see men and how you see women. Does it happen through one piece of content? No — through repeated exposure, over a long period of time.

This is Shaitaan's style:

Shaitaan didn't convince Adam overnight or immediately. He reeled them in. دَلَّىٰهُمَا is literally when you reel in the bucket from a well — to pull slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly until you've caught your victim, you've taken the bait. And so every influencer who has an agenda — just like Shaitaan has an agenda with Adam — every influencer has an agenda. Be they a politician, be they a friend, be they a teacher, be they a social media influencer, be they a celebrity. Everyone has some idea that they want to shape society and move you, change your ideas, change your actions. But they will do so through slow and repeated exposure, not in one go.

So the first thing is: never take the bait. If you know the truth and you have a positive influence, you will say, I don't need this person in my life. I don't need this newspaper, I don't need this tabloid, I don't need this content creator. I've got positive role models in my life.

If you don't have positive role models, you don't have a strong positive influence — you will be hungry for any influencer. Those people who are empty, who don't have father figures, who don't have mother figures, who don't have teacher figures in their lives — they go looking for other influencers. Online, offline — they're walking on the street and an older person pulls them in, someone who's dealing in drugs, someone who's in a gang. Because of that emptiness, you need other forms of influence to take you on a journey.

And so Shaitaan, slowly but surely, convinces Adam to eat from the tree. And what immediately happens is that his clothes get pulled off and he becomes exposed. And now Allah sends a message to all of us:

"O Children of Adam, do not be convinced by Shaitaan. This is the same one who removed your parents from paradise, slowly and surely through subtle ways of influencing them. He wanted to get rid of their clothes to expose their nakedness." Him and his tribe — all these devilish negative influencers — they are watching you and they are subtly moving you along in the wrong direction. Be careful.

That is the first influencer. And what is the style of this influence? It's not obvious that you're being influenced. It's very subtle and covert. Small messages, subliminal messages, slow exposure — until one day you find yourself doing something you never thought you would ever do.

One day, in Nottingham, I was stood outside the university campus, and a car rolled up, the window came down, and a guy stuck his arm out with a joint of weed in his hand and said, "Brother, free joint. Do you want to try?" I didn't do anything. I'm just stood there. Now what else might be happening? I might be depressed. I might be on social media. I might be from a broken home, difficult life situations. I might have influencers who are subtly influencing me — people from down the road, from my neighbourhood, from school, college, university. If all of that had added up in that moment and he came in for the hard sell, I might have taken it. You never know when Allah is going to give you a temptation and a negative influence, and all you have to do is say no. But it's difficult when the build-up has been so subtle in so many different ways — you've been conditioned slowly to say yes.

In Surah Al-A'raf, Allah continues and says: Shaitaan is always going to try to work on subtly influencing you from all these different angles, to make you get rid of your sense of shame and your awareness of Allah.

The Second Influencer: Companions and Friends

The next influence that Allah is going to talk about is your friends and your companions. But Allah is not going to talk about your friends now in the worldly life. Imagine your closest 3–4 friends — pause — where will they be in the afterlife? Will they be in the fire, or will they be in paradise?

To help you start understanding who your friends are and to appreciate your company, Allah fast-forwards the whole story. He makes you imagine the moment that you set foot in the afterlife. And now, he starts to play back to you a conversation between people who are standing on the mountain of Al-A'raf. And what are they talking about? They're talking about their boys, their mates, their friends, their sisters, their companions in the world. Because what brought them there was those companions.

The people of paradise call out to the people in the fire and say: "Guys, whatever Allah promised to us came true. Did you find out that what Allah promised you came true?" They said, "Yes." Then it is announced between them: those who wronged themselves in the worldly life will be cursed by Allah.

There is a veil between them — it is so painful to look at the fire and the people in it that you can't even see them. On this mountain of Al-A'raf, you have people whose good deeds and sins were equal. They start to recognize people in paradise. They say: those are my mates — they made it! "As-salamu alaykum, guys." Then the people on this mountain start to recognize some of their other friends. Only these friends are not in paradise — they are in the fire.

They start to call out to their friends whom they can recognize in the fire. They say: "Guys, remember all those times in the worldly life when you were proud, you were arrogant, when you did all those wrong things — was it worth it at the end of the day? The deeds you did, the things you said — was it worth it?"

"Today, those people who you said were not cool, were useless, were boring, were backward — those people whom you swore Allah will not have mercy on — today Allah has allowed them to enter into paradise." This is a conversation between friends, but it's a painful conversation. And we have to start thinking about the influences in our close group of friends and really think about where they are taking us. If we were stood on that mountain, where will they be and where will we be? Allah is telling us: don't think about your friends only in this world — think about where they will be in the afterlife and where they are taking you.

The Analogy: Fertile and Rotten Land

Now, Allah gives us an analogy. Frequently in the Qur'an you have analogies — Allah compares worshipping idols to a fragile spider's web, the blind and the ones with sight, the example of rain, and so on. Here in Surah Al-A'raf, Allah gives another analogy. Allah says: fertile land — plants grow from fertile land by Allah's permission. But rotten land, no matter how much rain goes into it, nothing can come out. "That is how I give examples and signs for those who are thankful."

What does this mean in the context of influence and influencers? Allah is saying: rotten land, no matter how much water you give it, how many good substances you put in it, nothing is going to come out. But fertile land — you don't have to do much — and you get loads of colours and varieties and fruits.

If somebody is corrupt within and you bring them every kind of good influence, will it help them? But if somebody has a good heart, open-minded, truth-seeking — the smallest reminder, and you start to see fruits blooming from their heart.

The Third Influencer: You Yourself

This point is very important. It's not always about the influencers. Sometimes it's about you and me. What will Shaitaan say on the Day of Judgment? Will he say, "Yes, it's my fault, I'm really sorry, guys. I brought you here. You're all free now."? Is that what he's going to say? What does Shaitaan say in the Qur'an to people who blame him?

Exactly: "I merely enticed you. You're the one who accepted the invitation. Don't blame me — blame yourself."

So let's take it back to the influencers we have today. Can we blame them? We can't fully blame them. Yes, they are subtly influencing us — but who accepted to be influenced? You and me. We allowed ourselves to be influenced. That's the bottom line.

There are going to be people on the Day of Judgment who are being dragged into the fire, blaming the people before them, blaming the people who influenced them. And Allah is saying: no. It's your fault. You chose this path.

So the first influencer is Shaitaan, the devil. The second is companions — they will help to define your fate. The third is you — you accept to be influenced or you refuse to be influenced.

The Fourth Influencer: Powerful Figures in Society

Now the fourth one — maybe the most difficult. Allah talks to us and gives us the stories of prophets who were sent to their people. And every time a prophet was sent, the people had a certain response. Let me give you one example. Allah says:

"To Aad, I sent their brother, Hud." Why does Allah mention that he's their brother? So he's a citizen of that town. They've known him for a long time. If he speaks, he'll be influential for them — because they're his relatives, his friends, his co-workers, his colleagues. He grew up in that community. So Allah made an influential prophet from amongst them.

He says to his people: "Worship Allah alone. You have no god or deity but Him. Why are you not conscious of God?" Now, who responds to Prophet Hud? This is very interesting:

Al-Mala' — the leaders, the influential figures, the celebrities. The people he's preaching to — the general population — they don't respond to him. Who responds? The powerful. Why? Because the rest of the tribe is waiting to see what the celebrity, what the leaders, what the influential people are going to say. They're just going to blindly follow what they do.

There is a large portion of society who live life as sheep. That's what the Qur'an is teaching us. Allah talks in the Qur'an about the followers and the followed — the influencers and the influenced:

The followers on the Day of Judgment who blindly followed their influencers into Jahannam — they'll wake up in Jahannam and they will say: "Oh Allah, send us back. We'll go back to Earth and we'll disown these influencers just as they have disowned us. We're going to unfollow all of you. We're not going to listen to you." Because on the Day of Judgment, every influencer — like the Pied Piper of Hamelin — is taking large groups of followers straight to Jahannam. And the followers say, "He brought us here." And the influencer says, "I've got nothing to do with them. They decided to come here on their own. I just made a reel. I just tweeted. I just put out a paper. I just had a campaign. They decided to follow me. I didn't ask them to follow me. They made the decision."

The people are so shocked. They say: "Oh Allah, send us back. If we knew this person was such a snake, we'd go back to the worldly life and unfollow and block all of them." Yes — all the negative influencers in our lives, those who are taking us slowly but surely and subtly to Jahannam — on the Day of Judgment, they'll pretend they don't know us. Those people whose autographs we took, whose articles and books we read, whose movies we watched, who shaped the narrative — they'll say, "I've got nothing to do with these people."

Be Critical. Be Difficult to Influence.

Now, there are exceptions. Who are the people who are not waiting for what the tribal leader or the celebrity says? Who are those people who are not easily influenced? They are people who may be downtrodden — they don't have wealth, they don't have power. But it's not just enough to be downtrodden. There's something else they have that makes them very difficult to influence. They think critically. They think for themselves. They are not waiting to be influenced by anyone.

And this — this is the essence of what I'm trying to communicate to you and what this surah is telling us. Do not be a follower. Do not become blind. Do not become easily influenced. Be difficult to influence. Anybody who tries to influence you — ask them why. "Why should I? I don't agree. Let me think about it. Let me reason through it." Do not be easy to influence. Be open-minded. Ask questions. Check narratives. What's the evidence for this? Where did this come from? Is this media narrative correct? Who's the source? Is it an authentic source? Ask questions. Be critical.

If you're not critical, what will happen? You'll be so gullible. You'll be swept up by the tide. You'll find yourself one in a large mob of people just marching blindly behind your leader — like the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. He plays a tune, all the children start listening and following him, and as he continues playing his flute and walking, they follow him all the way into a river. They actually hired the Pied Piper to take the rats out of the town with his tunes. But instead, he took the children out of the town and they all drowned.

There's a reason this story is known by so many people across the world and read so commonly. It's a story of influence. And how, if you're easily influenced, you'll be playing to somebody else's tune until one day you find yourself in a burning fire and you'll say, "Why did you bring me here?" And he'll say, "I've got nothing to do with you. You were just watching my reels, but you were just a data point. I was earning money off you. I monetized you. Every moment that you watched my reels and videos, I was getting rich. At least I had some wealth in the world from you. But you've got nothing."

Whether it's red pill, whether it's blue pill, whether it's green pill, whether it's masculinity, whether it's femininity, whether it's the dramas on the Dawah circuit, whether it's what's happening in Speaker's Corner, whether it's brands, fashion, trends — the influences in society are all there looking for the gullible people who are ready to buckle with the nicest ad.

The father of PR was a student of the father of Western psychology, Sigmund Freud. And the very first advertising campaign that ever went out in history — you can go search this on Wikipedia — was a campaign to convince women to smoke cigars. Now how do you convince a woman to smoke a cigar? The marketers asked: what do women want? It was the late 18th, early 19th century. Women want freedom, women want liberation — they want to vote, the suffragettes. They want freedom? Perfect. Let's link freedom to cigars. And they produced a cartoon image of a woman with a bicep smoking a cigar. So the cigar made her stronger? It's bizarre when you think about it. But hundreds of thousands of women started to smoke from those ads. They were being taken into the river by the Pied Piper — by the devil, by their friends, by the ads.

So much of history is shaped by influential figures, media, narratives, and content creators. When the prophets are sent to their people, they carry a pure, powerful message — an idea that breaks all social structures. However, when the prophets are preaching the worship of one God, who is terrified of this message? The powerful figures. Because when people believe in one Creator and submit to Him, they're no longer submitting to and feeding the ego of that influencer or that celebrity. They don't care about the celebrity anymore because they care more about Allah Himself. So people in power are terrified of the message of monotheism. And so what do they do? Let's kill the prophet. Let's get rid of him.

The leaders of Quraysh sit in a circle — how are we going to assassinate Muhammad? Lut is sent to his people and they say, get rid of this man, assassinate him overnight. This happens again and again and again. But the Qur'an teaches us something very important: Allah is backing those who influence using the influence of revelation. Whoever is trying to influence society through the words of Allah — they have the backing of Allah. Be they not famous, be they not powerful, be they not wealthy, be they not have media or narratives or tools — they have Allah.

The Story of Musa: How to Be a Positive Influence

Now, this whole story of Surah Al-A'raf culminates in the story of the prophet Musa. And Musa is the perfect story for you to understand influence. Not just how to be influenced and how not to be influenced — but how should we influence everyone else? How should we be positive influences in society? The story of Musa teaches us this.

Allah begins telling us the story:

"I sent Musa with My influence, My signs, My ayat — to Firaun and his Mala', his influential people. And they were unjust with those signs." They said, "We are more powerful. You have nothing. You and what army, Musa?"

"Look at what happened in the end to those who were corrupt."

Musa comes with his signs. He throws his staff and it turns into a snake. He pulls his hand out and it has beaming white light. Musa's influence is becoming powerfully felt because the signs are piercing into the hearts of people. They are surprised — this is something special. So now, Firaun and his wealthy and powerful politicians have to unlock a new form of influence — the media:

The influential people start to push media narratives across the country of Egypt: "Guys, this is a dangerous magician. He wants to take you out of your land and steal your jobs. Moses, coming from Madian — he wants to steal your land, he wants to steal your jobs." Does it sound familiar? It's an old message. Beware of the foreign threat — the foreigner who's stealing your land. The same message.

So you have Firaun, his influential powerful politicians, the influence of the media — and now he's going to unlock a new form of influence. He's going to call upon the magicians, because he's desperate. There's no way to defeat this Musa, this influencer, except with a public duel. A public confrontation — this one person with his verses and miracles against an army of magicians. He has to lose. Does he lose? We're about to find out.

Firaun brings this new form of influence — his magicians — for a public confrontation for everyone to see. "Come watch this strange person who's trying to steal your land. Watch him lose in a duel." The magicians come. He throws his staff, they throw theirs. And his snake devours their snakes.

And now, see what's powerful about the form of influence in revelation. Revelation is not trying to manipulate anybody's mind. That's what magic is — magic is a manipulation of the eyes, sleight of hand, trickery. There's nothing real behind it. Gullible people are fooled by magic tricks. You can only play tricks on people who are easily influenced. All of these things — power, influence, media — are all tricks.

The power of revelation is that it's the real deal. It's not a trick. And people who realize that are immediately bowled over by the message of revelation. The moment these tricksters see what's happening, they realize: this man is not a trickster. He has something genuine. He is the real deal.

The magicians who were supposed to be exposing Musa to everybody else immediately fall in prostration. They say: "We believe in Allah, Lord of the worlds — the Lord of Musa and Harun." Weren't they supposed to influence Musa? What happened? They got influenced.

Now Firaun doesn't like this. He flexes his other forms of influence:

"Guys, I'm the boss. How did you believe in Musa without my permission? You planned this overnight." He has to spin it somewhere — the PR machine continues. "I'm going to chop off your arms and legs from alternate sides. Then I'm going to crucify all of you. You're going to listen now? You asked for the bull, you got the horns."

Now Firaun is using the most powerful tool of influence — brute force. Are the magicians going to be influenced by it? What do they say?

"We don't care, do whatever you want. Have fun. We are going back to Allah anyway — you're just going to speed up the journey. In fact, if you get rid of us, maybe Allah will forgive us, because we were the first believers. If you slaughter us, you're going to give us an achievement. Please continue — we're excited for this."

Conclusion: Fill Your Heart with the Qur'an

The moral of the story: if you have revelation and you are impacted by revelation, nobody can influence you. No tyrant, no media, no narrative, no social media creator — nobody can influence you. Because the influence of revelation is the influence that changed the world. It can change people because it is the influence that comes from Allah Himself.

And the more you fill your heart with the Qur'an, the less easy you become to influence by others. And the more empty you are from the Qur'an, the more easy game you are for other influences. Fill yourself with the Qur'an. Fill yourself with the greatest influence that the earth has ever seen. And no advert, no content creator, no tyrant, no media — nobody will be able to influence you.

That's the moral of the story.