EPIC Masjid, Imam Nadeem Bashir, Know Your Enemy(Shaitan Series)

Know Your Enemy: The Shaytan Series

In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. Allah is the one who is controlling and sustaining the entire universe. He is the one who knows everything. He is not affected by time. He is not affected by calamities. We praise Allah whose knowledge encompasses everything. He has knowledge of everything that takes place in this world, whether it is done openly or done secretly.

Allah's hearing is so complete — when two people are talking to us, we have to tell one person to wait their turn so we can listen to what the other person is saying. We cannot listen to two people at the same time. Allah's hearing is complete in such a manner that He can hear every conversation that takes place simultaneously around the entire world. His seeing is so complete that when we see, we can only see at a particular distance. The seeing of Allah is complete. He is looking at everything that is taking place in the entire world at the same time.

And we testify that there is none worthy of worship besides Allah. And we testify that Muhammad ﷺ is the Messenger and the Rasul of Allah.

Allah says:

Our Purpose in This World

Respected brothers and sisters, Allah has sent each one of us for a very particular time, with very specific instructions and a very special purpose. Allah says in the Qur'an:

In another ayah, Allah says:

Uwais al-Qarani, the famous tabi'i, said:

"This dunya was created for you — to assist you and to aid you. Everything that we see around us helps the human being to survive on the face of this earth. But you, the human being, you were created for the life hereafter."

So while we are sent into this world with very specific instructions, Allah sent prophet after prophet to show and guide mankind — this is how, if you do this, you earn the pleasure of Allah. And if you do that, you will be going far away from the path of Allah, which will lead you to ultimate destruction.

The Roles We Play in This Life

We are living in a life that is full of ups and downs, challenges. Each one of us has ambitions. There are some who have ambitions and there are some who don't. There are some in this life who are always trying to climb the ladder of success. A person who joins a new company as an employee — his sole intention, his purpose — is to dedicate himself to climbing the ladder in his new job. How can I get to a higher position?

There are some in this world who are absolutely content with where they are. As long as they are healthy, as long as they have food on the table to eat, as long as they have clothes to wear, as long as they are not in heavy debt — except for a mortgage — they are content in life. There are people like that also. But each one of us can play an important role.

A parent fulfills a role of taking care of his children. Day and night, parents are more worried about their children than they are worried about themselves. When there are three or four children in one family, when they take care of one, they have to think about the other. One gets sick, the other one is okay. That one becomes healthy, the other one gets sick. Life. Someone asked me, why does this happen? I said — life happens. This is what life is all about.

A child — what role does he or she fulfill? They just play around. What about a student? A student tries to maintain good grades in school. They try to finish their degree and accomplish what they are trying to accomplish. A businessman is constantly worried about how to take his business from one level to the next. If his business is worth $10,000, he is trying to take it to $100,000. If it is worth $100,000, he is trying to take it to $1 million. A boss maintains everything around him. So every person has a role they fulfill.

But in life, whatever a person is trying to achieve — however valuable and important it is — there are that many obstacles. If you want to achieve anything, even if you want a glass of water, you cannot just sit on your couch and say "I want a glass of water" and have it come to you. No, you have to get up. You have to go to the kitchen and fill that glass with water. Everything requires some effort, some obstacle.

But the most important thing — why we are all here — is to achieve Jannah, to protect ourselves from the fire of Jahannam, and to achieve the pleasure of Allah. This is why we are all here. And this is what we need to strive for. I'm not saying that we leave what we do. I'm not saying that we leave our families. I'm not saying that we leave our jobs. These are important things that we have to fulfill — things we learn from the Prophet ﷺ and the Sahaba, that they took care of their families also. But the true purpose of a believer is that he is concerned and worried about the akhirah.

Identifying Our Greatest Enemy: Shaytan

While we are trying to achieve Jannah, while we are trying to protect ourselves from the fire of Jahannam, while we are trying to achieve the pleasure of Allah — we have a great obstacle before us. We have an enemy. There is someone out there who is always trying to pull us back, who is always trying to stop us from achieving our goals. And that is Shaytan. Shaytan is always there. He is always trying to deceive a human being. He has taken an oath before Allah.

Allah mentions Shaytan nearly 90 times in the Qur'an. And this is only in the Qur'an — in the ahadith there are countless narrations regarding Shaytan, how he deceives human beings and what his traps are. But it is our responsibility to learn about who Shaytan is.

In the Qur'an, Allah says:

Allah says that Shaytan is your enemy — take him as your enemy. Do not take him as your friend. We say that Shaytan is not our friend, but the way we are conducting ourselves in our lives, the way we are spending our lives, it is actually in parallel with the ideas and the advice of Shaytan. We say that we love Allah and we love His Prophet ﷺ. But for the most part, our lives are contrary to the teachings of Allah and the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

You know, those people who go for Hajj — long ago, when they did not have the expanded jamarat — people would perform the rami and they would say, "You, Shaytan! You have done this to me in my life, you have done that to me!" They say all sorts of things. And then what do they do? They turn around and they follow the footsteps of Shaytan.

The Oath of Shaytan

What is the oath that Shaytan has taken before Allah? He says:

Shaytan swore: "I'm going to attack this person. This person is very vulnerable and easy to deceive." But then he admitted:

There are some people of Allah who have the consciousness and awareness of Allah at all times — those people Shaytan cannot get close to. He will attack from the front, and from behind, from the right, and from the left. Whatever a person sees, Shaytan will bring opportunities to break the orders of Allah at all times. It is so difficult to stay away from sin today. So many different traps. This is the oath that Shaytan has taken.

Then Allah says in another ayah:

Why is Allah talking about Shaytan when He is talking about eating? Because here Allah is telling us that money and wealth is something we all fall for. Every person is weak when it comes to money. We see in this world that people are ready to commit haram, ready to commit crimes, just for money. Allah says: when it comes to money, do not follow the footsteps of Shaytan. Shaytan will try to deceive you.

And Allah talks about this over and over again in the Qur'an — to remind us, to tell us that as you are going through this world, you are going to be attacked. But you have to remain firm. You have to be steadfast in your iman.

May Allah give all of us the ability to act on what has been said and heard. May Allah protect us from Shaytan.

Second Part of the Khutbah

Respected brothers and sisters, we don't realize — Shaytan is not only an enemy that is considered an external enemy. Shaytan runs within our veins. He runs within the blood. And he always tries to put waswasa — he always tries to deceive us.

The Hadith of Safiyyah bint Huyayy

Let me share with you a hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ. There is a hadith that we have heard many times, but today I am going to share the entire hadith.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3281; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2175)

Ali ibn Husayn narrates that the Prophet ﷺ was in the masjid, and with him were his wives, the Azwaj Mutahharat. They all left. Safiyyah bint Huyayy, one of the wives of Rasulullah ﷺ, remained there. The Prophet ﷺ said to her: "Do not rush — I will walk back home with you."

So the Prophet ﷺ left with her. As they were walking at night, two men from the Ansar were walking by. They looked at the Prophet ﷺ — he was walking with a woman at night. Anyone who sees a person walking with a woman at night — what would they suspect? They looked at the Prophet ﷺ and then they moved on. The Prophet ﷺ called both of them back and said: "Come here, you two from the Ansar." Then he said: "This woman I am walking with — she is Safiyyah bint Huyayy."

They replied: "SubhanAllah, O Messenger of Allah! You are pure from this. We would not even suspect anything like this." And then the Prophet ﷺ said: "You would not have suspected anything in the initial stage. But when you went back home, Shaytan runs in your blood. Shaytan runs in your veins. And he would have cooked up something that causes suspicion. He would have brought something to your minds and played with them — told you: who was the Prophet ﷺ walking with at night? Who was the woman?"

And the Prophet ﷺ said: "I fear that Shaytan may have thrown something false into your minds. The reason I am telling you that this is Safiyyah bint Huyayy, and the reason I am telling you that Shaytan runs in your blood — is so that he cannot deceive you, so that he cannot bring something false to your minds."

Shaytan: The Master Deceiver

Respected brothers and sisters, Shaytan is out there. Shaytan is around us at all times. How do we protect ourselves? How are we supposed to maneuver around Shaytan? The only way we can protect ourselves is when we know who Shaytan is, what his tricks are.

And Shaytan, on the other hand, has the sign of a true criminal. You know what a true criminal does? He involves other people and at the end removes himself out of the picture. He gets other people involved and then when it comes to push and shove, he takes himself out of the picture. And we see that this will happen on the Day of Judgment.

Allah says in Surah Ibrahim:

When the decision will be made — these are the people going to Jannah, these are the people going to Jahannam — Shaytan will address those being led to the Fire. You know it is the tendency of the human being to put blame on someone else. So when those people will be going to the fire of Jahannam, they will come to Shaytan and say: "You are the one who told us! Where are all the promises you made us?" Like a Ponzi scheme, like a pyramid scheme — so many promises, and then you are left with nothing. This is exactly what it is. A scheme created by Shaytan.

And Shaytan will say: "The promise that Allah made to you — He fulfilled it with truth. I made a promise to you, but I did not fulfill it. I had no intention to fulfill it. And furthermore — I never forced you. I had no authority over you. I only brought the idea to you and you implemented it. You executed it. I brought the ideas; you executed them." And then he will say: "Do not blame me — blame yourselves. Don't bring this to me. Make it your problem." And then these people will be led to the Fire.

Know Your Enemy

Respected brothers and sisters, we need to learn who Shaytan is. There was a Chinese military strategist — Sun Tzu — who said something amazing. He said: "If you know yourself and you know your enemy and you fight 100 battles, you will succeed in each one of them. If you don't know your enemy but you know yourself, you may win one, you may lose one. And if you don't know yourself — how weak you can be — and you don't even learn about your enemy, you will lose each one of those battles." And this is what is happening today. We don't know who Shaytan is. We can say that he's bad, he's evil — that's it. But what does he do? How does he attack a person? What kinds of ideas does he bring?

And believe it or not, there are times when Shaytan will come and he will do good — just to bring a person down. He will do something that appears good so that a person does not achieve true success. That is why it is so important that, number one, we identify our enemy. And today we have achieved that in today's khutbah — who is our enemy? It is Shaytan.

Number two is that we need to learn about who he is. Where did he come from? And honestly, when you look at Shaytan, his talent is unparalleled. His expertise, his experience — no one has as much experience as Shaytan. As I like to say, he has a very impressive résumé. Shaytan has a very impressive résumé. And at the same time, he has deceived prophets. He has deceived the children of the prophets. So who are we today?

I cannot say that I am a person who goes to the masjid five times a day and I am still protected from Shaytan. You know why? Because Shaytan knows how to get to every single person. In order to defeat your enemy, you have to study the weakness of your enemy. And this is what Shaytan does — he studies the weakness of every single person. Sometimes the weakness is our job. Sometimes the weakness is ourselves. Sometimes the weakness is our children. Sometimes the weakness is our spouse. Shaytan knows how to get to each one of us.

So we need to study Shaytan. We need to learn the tricks and strategies of Shaytan. We need to learn how to protect ourselves from Shaytan. And then we need to maintain whatever we do in order to protect ourselves — we need to be steadfast and remain steady in that. Because if a person does what he or she needs to do to protect themselves from Shaytan, and then lets their guard down, Shaytan will attack.

Why? Because Allah says in the Qur'an:

Not only does he bring whispers to you, but he will continue to bring them over and over again. Allah uses the word الْخَنَّاسِ — which in Arabic means one who repeatedly takes a step back. What is Allah telling us? That Shaytan is going to continue to attack your iman. He is going to attack it over and over again. As soon as you remember Allah, he will take a step back. And he sits there — like a lion waiting for his prey to come close so he can attack — in that exact same way. We are the prey, and Shaytan is the one who is hunting.

As soon as he sees that the heart is devoid of the remembrance of Allah, he attacks the human being. And as soon as a person remembers Allah, he takes a step back. This is what is happening to each one of us every single day. But at the end of the day, Allah has still given us an advantage.

Shaytan Has No Access to Your Heart

What did Allah say? Shaytan does not have access to our hearts. صُدُور is the plural of صَدْر, which means the chest. Shaytan can only come as close as the chest — that is it. But if he gets into our heart, you know why that is? Because we have given Shaytan access to our heart. If we do not give him access, Shaytan can never get there.

And why did Allah create this system? So that on the Day of Judgment, no one can come to Allah and say: "I did not have control over my own heart. My heart was in the hands of Shaytan and he could do anything he wanted." That is why Allah is telling us: your heart is in your hand. The ball is in your court. If you open up your life and your heart to Shaytan, that is your fault. That is your mistake.

So that is why, once again, we need to learn who Shaytan is and what his tricks are. And inshallah, what I want to do in the next coming few khutbahs is talk about how Shaytan deceives a person. There are so many tricks of Shaytan, and we need to learn each one of them. We need to learn each one of them. As I said earlier — we need to learn our enemy.

May Allah give all of us the ability to act on what has been said and heard.