The front attacks!
We have known before that Shaitan will try to make us hopeless and misguided away from our way to Allah. Allah Almighty says about Shaitan words “Satan said, “Because You have put me in error, I will surely sit in wait for them on Your straight path.” Quran 7:16
How does he do that?
The answer is “Then I will come to them from right in front of their hands and from behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them grateful [to You].” 7:17
How do these attacks work ?!
Shaitan is invisible and we don’t see him. But he whispers, “Who whispers [evil] into the chests of mankind” 114:5. This Arabic word “chests” is used also for emotions. So it’s refer to emotions like anger, greed, fear, love, happiness, etc. These are normal emotions. They are part of who we are. And Naturally we attract to the beautiful things. But Shaitan uses these feelings and manipulate them. He’ll use your anger to mess you up. He’ll use your sadness to mess you up.
What is Shitan goal?
He wants to take that feeling out of balance, to make you do anything that you can get it. To make you don’t care about the consequences of sins. He excites your feeling and says why do you have to wait! why can’t you have what you want right now! He comes at you right in front of you and you can’t see anything else but what you desire. And you don’t think what damage it will do to yourself or the others… you’re just completely led on by him! That is actually one of the great attacks of Shaitan from the front.
The other meaning for “I will attack them from the front of their hands” is about the future. To block your eyes from seeing what is ahead of us which at the end will be meeting with Allah. Whether you like it or not. Whether you want to accept that or not. We’re all heading that way with every breath that we take. And that meeting is unavoidable. Shaitan doesn’t want you to see that. To see that with every passing day we are getting closer to meet Allah and then tomorrow we’re even closer. All he wants from you is to think that future isn’t meeting with Allah but meeting your friends! But meeting with some holidays, having good times. He wants you to think about the future with what’s right in front of you not the long long term. Thinking about future’s education, home ownership, gaining some skills, raising up your children in a good manner, building up business and all of that stuff are long term thinking and these are good things. But actually Allah wants you to have even longer term thinking.
Shaitan doesn’t even blind your eyes from the future of meeting Allah but also he will make you pessimistic about the future …
-Nothing is going to work out
-It’s going to be bad
-It’s always going to fail
And you become so negative and your negativity becomes infectious. We have to have hope in Allah and ask him. But you cut that off by pessimism.
What is Shaitan by definition?
He’s a hopeless. And he wants you to become hopeless as well. Shaitan wants you to be consumed with lesser goals and to be so immersed with that goals so you see nothing else.
We are supposed to be goals driven…we should have goals about our family, health, education, career and so on. But these goals are not the actual purpose. They are only mean to a larger end! We’re here on that earth for a limited time. The purpose is not only to make money or only to get a good job. Shaitan wants to take those material things and make them your only purpose. If you have the best car ever, just one car accident can make it nothing! If you have a wonderful house , just one tornado can damage it! Allah has made us meaningful purposeful creatures. We’re all have time ahead of us. When Shaitan comes and attacks you from the front he wants you to have no respect for your time.
He wants you to think that you have all the time in the world.
-There is no urgency
-The only urgency is for your desire
-There is no urgency to do anything meaningful in life
when something meaningful comes up he says you got time buddy. Exactly what happens with every prayer! But you will make time for the video games, movies or social media… even if you’re so busy! You will waste your precious time with anything which is useless pointless frivolous. And when you waste your time, you look back and you say I wasted much time, then you become even more hopeless! That is the game that shaitan plays with us. We have to be mindful of these Shaitan’s attacks from the front of us.
The question now is… how do we fight against these attacks of Shaitan?
Certainly you have to recognize them first. But you must remember the reality of things around you as they are. The problem is when we start giving value to things according to appearance or from the media made values. We don’t look what is behind them. To know the real values and the truth of everything is the mission of Quran. And when you start looking to life by Qur’an values, the way you think about things, the way you prioritize things, the way you spend time, all of that will start changing.
May Allah make us of those who put the priorities in the right place and don’t allow the whispers of Shaitan do dissuade us from our purpose.
Written by Shaykh Hazem Hamed
