The Devil
I don't hate the Devil,
But I hate what he does.
I hate his conspiracies to spread
The corruption, the oppression,
The lies, the violence, the selfishness,
The exploitation, the wars, the genocides,
The murders, the rapes, the insults and jibes,
The confusion, the hubris and the ignorance of mankind,
Seeding in our society envy and anarchy,
But most of all, I hate what he does
Because he makes me hate me...
And makes me despair of my own humanity.
So this begs another question...
Why do I listen to him?
...................
The Devil is real. I think we should be very clear about this. He is not some intangible malevolent force in the human consciousness, like a typhoon blazing destruction across the plains of your soul. Mr. D has a personality, he is intelligent, belligerent and has amassed countless years of experience to hone his skill in his job description - which is to morally corrupt all children of Adam and Eve, and lead them to utter spiritual and physical annihilation.
But we are also not stupid. God All Wise, in His wisdom has given us akal, the cerebral faculty to reason things out, to weigh the pros and cons of our actions (or inactions), to judge which is the best path to take, and to learn from our own history, the History of Man that is often bloodied with wars, oppression, xenophobia, hubris, ignorance and hate, but are also shining with beautiful examples of messengers, prophets, saints and everyday simple people who were hardworking and intelligent, grateful and worshipful to their Maker, aka God Almighty. Surely, with such knowledge of our shared past, we would not fall to the deceit and dark whispering of Beelzebub.
Old Tricks New Suckers. But we do fall for his tricks, again and again. On a daily basis. Perhaps not murdering, pillaging or robbing a bank... but small 'white sins' that this sinner himself must admit to. I leave it to your imagination to contemplate this.
The Power of Remembrance. Which goes back to our enemy. If only we can always remember... remember God, remember our beloved Prophet, remember the kindness of our parents and siblings, the tolerance of our friends... remember the common history shared by all humanity... and learn from the lessons that our past can teach us... how would the Devil fool us?
He won't be able to.
But this would not fit God's plan for us.
The Gift of Forgetfulness. So I guess that is why we are also built with the capacity to forget. To give the Devil the opportunity to fool us and to corrupt us. So you see, God has leveled the playing field between Adam's Children and the Devil to give the Devil an even chance defeat mankind. Which goes without saying that Allah (swt), aka God Almighty is the fairest of them all... fair even unto the Devil himself.
And this also speaks of another thing... God's belief in us and in our inherent courage and goodness, that mercy-rich fitra (essence) of Muhammad (saws) that is in all humanity (not just them Muslims).
So perhaps we should remember all this and believe in God too.
I am trying. In my inevitably bumbling and clownish way.
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| Some Shaykh: "O' Taufiq. If you clown around too much, you will always risk dropping and shattering your heart. I am here to help you, but what if I am not? What then? The Clown: You will always be here, wherever you may be... |
wa min Allah at-taufiq
Hate has no place in Islam
Love will show the Way
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