Spiritual Anti-Scam : A believer\'s defense against Shaytan\'s traps ( Abdullah Cheng)
Dear brothers and sisters,
As people living in Taiwan, we are probably quite aware with being cautious about scammers. Whether it’s the government or schools or companies, they all try to spread a type of awareness in order to protect ourselves from falling into the trap of scammers and losing our money. And we know that nowadays there are hundreds and thousands of new tactics employed by the scammers, through phone calls, email phishing, impersonation. We are all quite familiar with these tactics that keep on updating and we are intentionally being careful not to get scammed.
But when it comes to the biggest scammer in history, who doesn’t make you lose your money, but makes you lose your entire Hereafter, the Shaytan, do we actually understand what his tactics are? Have we really taught ourselves and our families and our children how to prevent ourselves from being scammed by him? When we call Shaytan our enemy, how can we fight against him if we don’t understand what kind of plots he would use against us? So it’s very essential for us as Muslims to learn and study and spread awareness about the tricks of Shaytan the same way or even more rigorously than how we remind ourselves not to get scammed by human scammers.
What we need to understand is that the goal of Shaytan is not for people to worship him, it’s to misguide and drag as many people with him into the Hellfire as possible, as mentioned in the Qur’an:
قَالَ فَبِعِزَّتِكَ لَأُغْوِيَنَّهُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ
إِلَّا عِبَادَكَ مِنْهُمُ ٱلْمُخْلَصِينَ
Shaytan said to Allah: “By Your Glory! I will certainly mislead them all, except Your chosen servants among them.” [38:82-83]
Just like how those of us who are extremely cautious with potential scammers and viruses, those who are sincere and have firm belief in Allah are also excluded from being attacked by the Shaytan.
The first kind of tactic that the Shaytan uses that many people fall into, is to minimize sins and make them seem like nothing, until the sins keeps building up so much so that people start committing major sins. From a short delay to missing a prayer, from a quick stare to committing Zina, from a gossip to slandering others. It all seemed like nothing at the beginning, but if that small act did not cause our heart to feel uncomfortable or make us feel guilty, then Shaytan can continue to extend it until we don’t even notice when it’s already too late.
That is also why many of the rulings in our Shari’ah are preventive measures, to protect ourselves from even bigger problems by taking actions in the early stages, such as lowering our gaze, such as praying early on time, such as staying silent if we have nothing good to say. As long as we still feel the guilt in our hearts when committing mistakes, we should not ignore it and try to counter it right there and then.
The second common tactic that the Shaytan uses is the whispering of evil thoughts, the waswas and the nazagha. He uses this method to create animosity and division among the Muslims, to make one Muslim brother have a negative assumption and doubt about another Muslim brother, or make them distracted and focus on something that shouldn’t have mattered a lot, but he makes them turn the matter into a big deal and therefore start fighting each other. One of the greatest greatest examples of this is the concept of nationalism, that one human looks down upon another human, or assumes something bad about him, just because of some imaginary border that some other human beings have created, and we can clearly see how much damage this has caused to our Muslim Ummah.
But how do we differentiate if the thought that came to my mind was a waswas from the Shaytan or it was from my own nafs? The scholars pointed out that if the thought made us shocked, that we feel a sense of surprise from this thought, then it is from the waswas of the Shaytan. And the best way to encounter against the waswas is to simply ignore those thoughts, and seek refuge in Allah, as Allah taught us in the Qur’an:
وَإِمَّا يَنزَغَنَّكَ مِنَ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنِ نَزْغٌۭ فَٱسْتَعِذْ بِٱللَّهِ ۖ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ
And if you are tempted by Satan, then seek refuge with Allah. Indeed, He ˹alone˺ is the All-Hearing, All-Knowing. [41:36]
Since these waswas and evil thoughts can appear at any time, we need to be constantly prepared and protecting ourselves, and that’s why the Prophet ﷺ taught us to constantly recite the last 3 surahs of the Qur’an: Surah Al-Ikhlas, Surah Al-Falaq, and Surah Al-Nas, as well as the adhkar to protect ourselves.
And the third tactic that Shaytan uses is to give us false promises, just like how scammers fool people by showing you a shortcut that will make you millions, but in reality you’ll not only get nothing but ruin your whole life. You might then think how can the Shaytan make false promises? Allah says in the Qur’an:
يَعِدُهُمْ وَيُمَنِّيهِمْ ۖ وَمَا يَعِدُهُمُ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ إِلَّا غُرُورًا
Satan only makes them ˹false˺ promises and deludes them with ˹empty˺ hopes. Truly Satan promises them nothing but delusion. [4:120]
He makes these false promises by making you think: if I delay my Salah, I will complete my task more efficiently and therefore gain more money; if I give too much charity, it will make me poor. And the common thing about all these promises is that they all shift the focus away from thinking long term and forgetting about the Akhirah.
So only when we actually learn and study about the tactics of Shaytan, then we can be aware of what Shaytan wants us to do and expect from us, so that we do the exact opposite of what he wants. If we simply curse the Shaytan when we commit mistakes or we get shocked at something, that would only make his ego bigger. Instead of giving Shaytan the credits, we should be mentioning the name of Allah, as our Prophet ﷺ taught us, say “Bismillah” In the name of Allah, and that will make Shaytan shrink until he becomes as small as a fly. That is something we need to practice and get used to, when we suddenly hear a huge sound, or an accident, or an injury, instead of cursing and saying bad words, mention the name of Allah by saying Bismillah and remember Him.
May Allah make us among His sincere and chosen servants whom Shaytan has no power over. May Allah protect us and our families from the traps and whispers of Shaytan. May Allah unite our hearts and protect the Muslim Ummah