Cutting Off The Avenues Of Sin To Resist Shaytan's Whispers
By Qari Hasan Abid | 2026-06-29T19:59:08.308274+00:00 | Topic: Quran
Jumu'ah Khutbah — Qari Hasan Abid
The Adhān
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.
I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
Come to Prayer. Come to Prayer.
Come to success. Come to success.
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
First Khutbah — The Whispers of Shaytan and Cutting Off the Avenues of Sin
In this surah, Allah commanded us to seek refuge with Him — seeking refuge with Allah three times, as opposed to just once, and from how many things? Just from one thing: the whispers of Shaytan. Because Shaytan, he waits for that critical moment when a person is down. A person could go months worshipping Allah — months without committing a single sin — but that one day where he loses his job, that one day where that person is feeling depressed, that one day when a person isn't feeling as spiritually high as he usually does, Shaytan sees that weakness and he pounces upon it. And now all of those good deeds that he did from the previous days — the effect of that just vanishes.
So although it is very, very important that a person is increasing in his amal and increasing in dhikr — which is yes, ultimately very important — what is keeping away from that state of heedlessness which Shaytan is taking advantage of. But more importantly, a person needs to stay away from committing sins.
A very good example is: if a person gets in a car and he has a heater on — he has it on for 20–30 minutes and the car is hot and it's warm — but the second, on an icy day like this, on a winter day like this, he opens the window and that cold air comes in, the effect that he had created is completely gone. Similarly, the spiritual effect that a person feels is completely washed away, and then it's just a downward spiral. That entire month, the last two months, the last three months he spent building that connection to Allah — it seems as if it's all washed away.
So a person needs to take a lot of importance in not only stopping himself from sin, but also cutting off the avenues toward that sin. When a person reaches a point where he is feeling spiritually down, where he is not feeling like doing as much ibadah, where he lost his job, where he's going through some type of argument — which would now be a gateway for Shaytan to inject him with his wasāwis — a person creates obstacles such that Shaytan is not able to affect him. Even if he does inject him with those wasāwis, a person will not get affected.
Just as when a person is sitting in class, Shaytan will not inject him with wasāwis because he knows those obstacles are there. If a person has artificially created obstacles from committing any sins, then similarly Shaytan cannot affect him, because those obstacles are in place.
Practical Examples of Cutting Off Avenues for Sin
If a person has a habit of watching illicit content on his phone, then he should sit down and think: what is leading me to do that sin? Am I committing that sin in public? No. I'm committing it when I go to my house, when the door of my room is closed, and when I'm all alone. So a person makes a habit of leaving his phone at school, leaving his phone at the madrasa. A person makes a habit — he goes to his friend and tells him to put a password on any websites that will negatively affect him.
A person has a bad habit of going to sleep without praying his Isha salah. So now a person has to actually sit down — he can't just say in his mind that "I have to stop the sin" and that's the end of it. No. He has to think of active ways: how am I getting caught up in this sin, and how can I get out of it? That person sees: I don't have time to go to the masjid for Isha, and then he delays it to the point where he starts feeling sleepy and he just goes to sleep. So then this person, right when the salah time comes in, he prays his Isha salah right away.
Or a person keeps missing his time for reading his daily Quran — he can maybe attach his Quran recitation to a habit or a thing which he's doing every single day. For example, every single day he prays his Isha salah and he has 10 free minutes after that. In those 10 free minutes, I can recite my Quran every single day.
So whatever problem any one of us are going through, first we identify what the different problems are, and then a person truly thinks — he does not have husn al-dhann of himself, he does not think good of himself — but rather he thinks: what are the different ways, what are the different avenues that are leading to the sin, and he cuts them off completely. Even if it's uncomfortable cutting them off. Even if he has to expose that sin to a teacher — for example, a person goes to a teacher and tells him: "I have XYZ problem and I need help getting out of this problem. How can I cut off the different asbāb, the different avenues for the sin, so that the sin can be removed permanently from my life?"
This way, a person completely cuts himself off from all different types of sin, and that now gives him a basis to start increasing slowly in amal. Now when he starts building this tower of amal, there is no potential for that tower to be collapsed. Now when a person has cut off this avenue of sin, he slowly, slowly starts building an environment where he's doing good deeds, and now his natural fitrah — his natural disposition — will change from wanting to do harām things, wanting to do evil things, to wanting to do those things which are the pleasure of Allah.
Building a Conducive Environment for Good Deeds
But a person must put himself in a conducive environment. Once he has cut himself off from sin, how can he build a foundation that will let him build upon that and start continuing to do more deeds for the sake of Allah? What are conducive environments that a person can find?
For example, in two weeks we have the Dar us-Salaam retreat coming up. For one full day a person will be able to stay inside the masjid. From Zuhr to Asr he'll be reciting Quran. From Asr to Maghrib he'll be doing dhikr. From Maghrib to Isha he'll be sitting in different talks about spirituality, about different spiritual diseases that are there in our lives, and how we can overcome those same spiritual diseases. At night, getting up for tahajjud. This will serve as a catalyst for a person to now start doing more and more good deeds.
So just to recap: number one, a person has to identify what sins he's involved in in his life. Then number two, identify the avenues for those sins and cut off those avenues. Then number three, he starts building upon good deeds and puts himself in a conducive environment to start doing those good deeds.
So we ask Allah to grant us the ability to stay away from all sins, and to cut off the avenue for any sins that we are involved in, and then to start doing good deeds slowly for His sake, and to die with the kalimah on our lips.
Wa ākhiru da'wānā anil-hamdulillāhi Rabbil ālamīn.
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Second Khutbah
Anas ibn Malik reported that the Messenger of Allah said: "Verily, Shaytan flows through the son of Adam as blood flows through him." (Sahih Muslim, Book 39, Hadith 5404)
Bārakallāhu lanā wa lakum fil-Qur'ānil Azīm, wa nafa'anā wa iyyākum bimā fīhi minal āyāti wadh-dhikril-hakīm. Aqūlu qawlī hādhā wa astaghfirullāha lī wa lakum wa lisā'iril muslimīna min kulli dhanbin, fastaghfirūh, innahu huwal-Ghafūr ar-Rahīm.
Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillāhi nahmaduh, wa nasta'īnuh, wa nastaghfiruh, wa na'ūdhu billāhi min shurūri anfusinā wa min sayyi'āti a'mālinā. Man yahdihī Allāhu falā mudhilla lah, wa man yudhlil falā hādiya lah. Wa nashhadu an lā ilāha illallāhu wahdahu lā sharīka lah, wa nashhadu anna sayyidanā wa mawlānā Muhammadan 'abduhu wa rasūluh.
The Prophet said: "The most merciful of my ummah towards my ummah is Abu Bakr; the most stern in the matters of Allah is Umar; the most modest is Uthman; and the most judicious is Ali. And Fatimah is the leader of the women of the people of Jannah; al-Hasan and al-Husayn are the leaders of the youth of the people of Jannah; and Hamza is the lion of Allah and the lion of His Messenger — may Allah's pleasure be upon them all."
O Allah, have mercy upon al-Abbas and his children with a forgiveness, outward and inward, that leaves no sin behind. O Allah, beware — regarding the Companions, do not take them as a target. Whoever loves them, it is out of love for them; and whoever hates them, it is out of hatred for them. And the best of generations is my generation, then those who follow them.
O Allah, grant victory to those who support the deen of Muhammad, and make us among them. And forsake those who abandon the deen of Muhammad, and do not make us among them.
Udhkurullāha ta'ālā yadhkurkum, wad'ūhu yastajib lakum, wa la-dhikrullāhi ta'ālā akbar, wallāhu ya'lamu mā tasna'ūn.