EPIC Masjid, Imam Nadeem Bashir, Test of Faith.

The Constant Attack of Shaytan on Our Iman

These realities are manifest and clearly transparent — they are present in the Qur'an everywhere. But then what is the second reason that we come and say this? It is because Shaytan is with us all the time. And Shaytan is always attacking our Iman.

Again and again, again and again. Allah talks about Shaytan in the Qur'an. That Shaytan has made an oath, he has taken an oath. Allah said in Surah Al-A'raaf: I will attack a person from in front. I will attack him from behind. I will attack him from his right side and I will attack him from his left side. Meaning that Shaytan is going to use his full force to attack a person's Iman. And not just once. Shaytan is not such that he gives up.

Today when we try to do something, we give up very quickly. We fail once, we give up. We try to do it again, we fail twice, we give up altogether. Shaytan never gives up.

Surah An-Nas and the Whisperer

Allah revealed Surah An-Nas — a surah that even a small child in our community will know. But what do we recite in this surah? Allah says that we are seeking the protection of Allah from Shaytan. Who does what? Who whispers in our hearts. He tries to deviate us. He tries to misguide us.

SubhanAllah — look at the word Al-Waswas. There is a repetition in the letters. Allah says الْوَسْوَاسِ — implying that when Shaytan comes and he whispers, he continues to whisper. He repeats his whispering in a person's heart.

And not only that, but he never gives up. Allah says he is Al-Khannas. Al-Khannas means that he continues to come and attack the person's Iman. He takes a step back — when he sees that a person's heart is remembering Allah, he takes a step back. And then he comes back again to attack a person's Iman. And he puts those doubts in a person's heart. Then he moves back. And then again he comes back.

And this word Al-Khannas is like the word Wahhab. Wahhab is one of the attributes of Allah that signifies that Allah does not only give once — he continues to give. In the same exact way, Shaytan continues to attack the person's Iman.

The Castle Analogy: Shaytan and the Heart

But then Allah has made it easy for us. He has made it easy for us to protect ourselves from Shaytan by how He says:

Allah said that Shaytan comes and puts his whispers into the chest of a person — فِي صُدُورِ النَّاسِ. He never said فِي قُلُوبِ النَّاسِ. Why? Because of the example that some of the ulema give: imagine there is a castle, and around this castle there is a huge wall that surrounds and protects it. What Allah is implying here is that Shaytan is outside these walls. Shaytan does not even have access to the castle, because first he needs to get through these walls.

But what happens is that if the gates and the doors are open, Shaytan will get through the wall, get through the boundary, and come and attack the castle. In the same exact way, our heart — which Shaytan does not have access to — Allah has only given Shaytan access to the chest of a person. But if a person goes so far away from Allah, this person indirectly and unintentionally opens up his chest and grants access to Shaytan to his heart. That is when Shaytan comes and he deviates a person.

Allah has kept Shaytan away from us. Yet we look at our own lives — Shaytan has such an effect. What does that mean? That it is us who have brought Shaytan close to us. And how that happened is because we have continued to commit sins. Over and over again, Shaytan puts those whispers, we act upon those whispers, it becomes a sin, and Shaytan becomes closer and closer to us. So that is why it is so important that we need to stay away from sins.

Major Sins and the Blackening of the Heart

When there is the concept of sin in Islam, of course we all know that there are some major sins and some minor sins. According to some Sahabah, there is no such thing called a minor sin — there are only major sins in Islam. And today there are major sins that we are doing in our own lives which we tend to take very, very lightly.

Making fun of one another — that is considered a major sin in Islam. Breaking someone's heart — that is considered a major sin in Islam. Lying — that is considered a major sin in Islam.

Even when it comes to lying, a lot of times people lie to their children and don't even realize it. How? When children are misbehaving, we say: "If you come down, I'll give you a candy." And then if you don't give them that candy — is that just something we say to get them to stop? That is considered as lying in Islam. Even though you may be telling your children to do something in exchange for a reward, that is considered lying if you don't fulfill your promise.

The Story of Imam Bukhari and Truthfulness

Imam Bukhari had a very strict criteria for accepting a hadith in his book. It is said that one time Imam Bukhari traveled somewhere to learn a hadith from a person whose chain back to the Prophet ﷺ was very short. When he arrived, he saw that this person had a horse or a donkey. What did this person do? He gave a hand gesture toward the animal as if to say: "Come close and I'll give you this food." As soon as the animal came close, this person took the bag of food, set it aside, and tied the animal up.

When Imam Bukhari saw this, he walked away and began to leave. The person ran after him saying: "You came here to learn hadith from me — why are you leaving?" He said: "I cannot learn hadith from you anymore. Because you gave a hand gesture to the animal that if it came close you would give it food, and when it came close, you did not give it the food. You are a liar." He clearly said: "You lied to this animal."

So that's why it is so important. Some ulema say that any sin mentioned in the Qur'an is considered a major sin. And when we commit a major sin, our heart becomes blackened. First the heart is clean. Then it begins to have these black spots. And as a person continues to commit sin, the heart becomes completely black — to the point that it cannot listen, it cannot even digest the truth. When someone tells such a person that he is doing wrong, he becomes very rebellious, defensive, and offensive. That is a sign that his heart is black. Why? Because now he cannot even listen to the teaching of Allah. He cannot even listen to the hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ.

When we commit sins, through our salah, through our recitation of the Qur'an and through our dhikr and our tilawat of the Qur'an, these major sins will not be wiped out of our record. The only way these major sins can be wiped out of our account is when we make sincere tawbah to Allah.

When we break an order of Allah, Allah gets upset. Imagine when our own kids do something which we tell them not to do — how upset do we get? Imagine: Allah has given us everything. Everything that we have in our life, Allah has given it to us. Can we continue to sin? How do you think Allah feels? Ask yourself this question.

The Effects of Sinning

People have several questions. And sometimes people go through struggles in their lives. This is what life is all about — sometimes there are good times, sometimes there are struggles. Sometimes the struggles are so many that a person loses hope in Allah. Sometimes times are so good that he forgets about Allah also. But then the question is: what are the effects of sinning?

1. Decrease in Provision

First of all, Allah says in a hadith that when a person commits sins and is very persistent in committing sins, Allah decreases his provision. Now when a person's provision is decreased, it doesn't necessarily mean that only his wealth decreases — it has a much broader meaning. But it could mean that a person loses his job, or a huge unexpected expense comes his way.

Nonetheless, one of the things that happens is that when we see a decrease in our wealth, or when we financially struggle, we don't think that this may be the consequences of our sinning. I remember a scholar said something very amazing that I cannot forget. He said that when you look at a person who commits sin after sin after sin — he does not realize it. But a time will come that Allah will bring something very tragic, something that hits him very, very hard in his life. He may lose everything. And a person begins to ask himself: "Why did this happen in my life?" — whereas he does not realize that there are so many days of accumulated sins that have come and held him accountable.

That's why it's very, very important — if there is a decrease in our wealth, let us look at our way of living. If we are sinning, that is one effect of sins.

2. Broken Relationships

Another effect of sins is that Allah makes things difficult for us. When a person disconnects himself from Allah, Allah disconnects him from the people in his own community. You have a lot of people complaining: "I don't get along with my children. I don't get along with my family members." Why? Because when a person continues to sin, Allah severs the relationship between him and everyone else in his own community. So that's why it's very, very important — if there is an issue that we cannot get along with anyone in our community, it is probably because we are sinning so much.

3. Loss of Knowledge

Another effect of sins is that Allah takes away knowledge. How many times does it happen that a businessman does not forget his work, a scientist does not forget a formula, an IT person does not forget a code — but a person will memorize a surah and two weeks later, he will forget it? Why? Because that is the effect of sinning.

That's why Imam Shafi'i, he complained to his teacher Waki' about a weak memory. What did his teacher say?

(Attributed to Imam Shafi'i — recorded in Siyar A'lam an-Nubala' by Imam al-Dhahabi)

"I give you the advice that you must stay away from sinning. Why? Because the knowledge of the Qur'an and Sunnah is a nur, and the nur of Allah is not given to a sinful person." So that's why it is so important.

4. Loss of Barakah

There are so many effects of sins, and sins can destroy our life. Allah snatches the barakah away from our life — there is no barakah left in our wealth, no barakah left in our family, no barakah left in our life. Something that a person could do very easily now becomes extremely difficult. Why? Because that is the effect of sinning.

5. Taking Sins Lightly

Not only that — when a person continues to go far away from Allah, what happens is that when he does the slightest amount of sin, he feels like it is nothing. The Prophet ﷺ said to the Sahaba: "Right now, there are things that you would do and you think the wrath of Allah will come upon you. But there will come a time in my Ummah that they will commit those very same sins and take them very, very lightly." This is the time that we are going through right now.

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 22813; also narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 76, Hadith 494)

Respected brothers and sisters, when you sin — remember, remember, and remember — it is not a sin that you simply brush away like a fly. Allah knows about that sin. When sins accumulate, they come in the shape of something very, very terrible. So keep in mind: every single time we sin — small sin, major sin, any type of sin — there will be consequences. Consequences may come today, they may come tomorrow, but they will come. So always remember: if you are ready to suffer the consequences, then commit the sin. And if you are not ready to suffer the consequences, don't commit the sin.

How to Protect Yourself from Sin

Every time you are about to sin, think about Allah. Yusuf ﷺ — he was asked to come and commit zina. What did he do? He said:

That's all he said. And that was easy and sufficient for him to run away, and Allah gave him the strength to stay away from the sin. Whenever we are about to commit a sin, imagine — just imagine — that today we may be committing the sin and no one may be watching. But on the Day of Judgment, our sins will be exposed. Today, the sins that we are hiding and committing in secret — if those sins were exposed today in our own society, we would not even have the strength to show our face to someone else. Imagine those sins will be exposed before Allah on the Day of Judgment. So think about it. Every time you are about to commit a sin, think about it.

Do Not Boast About Your Sins

The last thing I will mention is something very, very despised and very much disliked by Allah. We are so weak that sometimes even when we commit sins, we boast about those sins. This happens a lot within social circles. When a person is trying to fit in socially with a group, he may commit a sin and then go and boast about it — "Oh, I did this and I did that" — and the people in his circle say: "Oh wow, what a great job. You're so awesome. You're so cool."

The Prophet ﷺ said that if there is one person who is among the most despised by Allah, it is the person who commits a sin at night, Allah covers that sin, but then this person goes and exposes it himself.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 78, Hadith 99; Sahih Muslim, Book 56, Hadith 107)

So remember: if we commit sins, first of all, we should be regretful. Number two, we should not even commit them. But if we do commit them — because we are human beings — we seek the repentance of Allah, we keep it to ourselves, and we continue to ask Allah for forgiveness. Because once again, I will repeat what I said earlier: there are consequences for every single sin that we commit. Whether people know about it or don't know about it. Whether it was committed during the daytime or the nighttime, openly or secretly — everything is in the knowledge of Allah, and Allah will hold us accountable for the sins that we commit.

May Allah give all of us the ability to have a sound and clean heart. Ameen.