Conversing with God | Qur'anic Du'as
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Episode 6: We Seek Refuge in You | Conversing with God
We’ve all heard the saying, “know thy enemy.” But Satan, our greatest enemy, is invisible. This makes it easy to forget the threat that he and all the devils pose to us. How do we keep this constant threat in mind and remain vigilant? We can start by remaining aware of our own temptations and seeking refuge in the words of God.
وَقُل رَّبِّ أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ هَمَزَاتِ الشَّيَاطِين
وَأَعُوذُ بِكَ رَبِّ أَن يَحْضُرُون
waqul rabbi aʿūdhu bika min hamazāti l-shayāṭīn. wa-aʿūdhu bika rabbi an yaḥḍurūn
"My Lord, I seek refuge in You from the strokes of the devils, and I seek refuge in You, my Lord, lest they come close to us." [23:97-98]
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Who is our greatest enemy? Our greatest enemy is shaytan. In other du'a that we learn in the Qur'an, Waqul rabbi a'udhu bika min hamazat al shayateen wa a'udhu bika rabbi an yahduroon Oh Allah, I seek refuge from the strokes of shaytan. And I seek refuge that he even comes close to us. Allah told us, Inna ash-shaytana lakum adoon, fattakhidhuhu adooah That shaytan, the devil, is your enemy, so take him as your enemy. And when someone is our enemy, we have to know our enemy. How do we protect ourself from shaytan? Well, we have to know his plots and we have to know how he plans. One of the things that shaytan does is he comes to us little by little. That's why Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la said, Ya ayyuhal lazeena amanoo la tattabi'oo khutuwati ash-shaytan Oh you who believe, don't follow the footsteps of shaytan. He didn't say don't follow shaytan, he said the footsteps of shaytan because shaytan comes little by little. Shaytan is not going to make us abandon our prayer overnight but what he's gonna do is come to us slowly and slowly. He'll say, you know what, you pray five times a day, you don't have to get up for fajr, just pray it when you get up. You're not missing it technically, you know? And it's okay even if you miss it, you're always praying fajr, right? You'll say you're really busy, you got that big meeting coming up at Jummah, you always pray Jummah. It's not gonna matter if you just miss it this one time. And we may start to take the bait and believe this so that over a period of time, maybe now we're inconsistent in the prayers. If you look at the language which is spoken in any culture, go back 20, 30 years, words that were said, phrases that were used, which were incredibly offensive
and harsh and derogatory and demeaning, now are the norm. Things we couldn't imagine. It's not like those words all of a sudden are not bad anymore or those phrases are not bad anymore. They still are, they've just become normalized. How does Shaytan do that? Step by step by step. So when we're watching something or listening to something or partaking in an activity, we have to ask ourselves, are we compromising a little bit now because that's all going to add up? Slowly, slowly, slowly and lead to something greater. This is a strategy of Shaytan. The other thing Shaytan does is he makes the ugly look beautiful. Afaman zuyina lahoo suu'uAAmalihi fara'aahu hasana There are those who their actions have been made to seem beautiful and they don't even see the evil in their actions. Let's take two simple examples, alcohol and gambling. Allah told us clearly about both of these. Ya ayyuhallatheena amanoo innama alkhamroo walmayseru walansaboo rijsum min amini shaytaan Oh, you who believe wine and gambling and this pagan practice, ansab, they are filth from Shaytan. Now, when we look at alcohol, if you ask the average person, be honest, what do you think of when you think of alcohol? They're not going to tell you about the misery that it causes. Now, I work in drug addiction. I can tell you the misery it causes. You can look at the stats. You can see the broken families, lost dreams and everything that it causes. That's not what Shaytan does. He makes it look beautiful. Ask the average person, young person, older person, what do you think of when you think of alcohol? They will say fun. I think of people hanging out on a beach. I think of beautiful people. I think of being very successful, pouring expensive wine. How is Shaytan able to do that? Because he's making it look beautiful.
When you think of gambling, a gambling machine, it attracts you to it. It's beeping, it's buzzing, it's got nice designs. It looks almost like a video game. People are attracted to it. You don't see behind all of that, that gambling disorder is a diagnosis in the manual of mental disorders. You don't see that because Shaytan made it look beautiful. And so this is a great way to explain these concepts to other Muslims, to those who are asking questions, that Shaytan, look how he's making, look behind, look beyond the surface to see what is actually happening here. And look what Shaytan is doing to make these ugly things look beautiful. So Shaytan is patient. Shaytan is not impatient. As long as he gets his way, he will continue to plot and he will continue to plan and he will continue to come little by little. So how do we protect ourselves from Shaytan? We know about his plotting and his planning. Also, we seek refuge from Shaytan and reading Surat Al-Baqarah. Because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us that Shaytan flees from a house where Surat Al-Baqarah is read. Maybe there's six people in your household. Maybe there's two, maybe there's one. Whatever the case may be, yes, it's a long Surah and maybe you say, well, I'm a little slow at reading it. Well, the speed comes by reading it. And the time that it takes to read it, the benefits are so much. Imagine a house safe from Shaytan. Imagine what we will not be listening or seeing. Imagine how beautiful the interaction will be in a house which is safe from Shaytan. And so this is why we seek refuge from Shaytan and we do what we can to combat our enemy
and know our enemy.
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