Satan knows that every evil thought whispered into the human heart will meet the voice of conscience commanding the truth. Given this situation, satan has devised a different order to hide his true identity and evil intentions. Sometimes he tries to make it seem that his suggestions are actually the voice of a person's conscience, by approaching them using the name of Allah.
Together with his minions, satan observes people to learn how they may be influenced and what they will react to. He directs them by being aware of their weak points and of which ideas confuse their minds. He deceives people in delicate matters of conscience by using religious values under the guise of auspiciousness. When he wants to tempt a person into some evil deed, he offers various alibis and excuses to show that the deed is right and legitimate. In this way, he tries to lead that person into a totally opposite form of "moral" behavior. The individual then uses satan's insincere excuses to defend to others the evil he has done.
Satan, on the other hand, tries to make believers think they are adequate, to get them to be content with some acts of worship they perform, and to find their efforts sufficient. He tries to convince them that they have a good moral character, that they do their best and that’s the utmost they can accomplish. He strives to make them believe that it's enough if their hearts are pure, that Allah recognizes the sufficiency of the good intentions of their heart and that He would be pleased with them and thus try to drift them into insincerity. Satan tries to soften people's hearts and make them believe that they are well-intentioned enough and has superior moral qualities compared to those around them.
But no matter how convincing and realistic the way satan puts forth his excuses, a person acting according to his suggestions knows that his actions are incompatible with the moral teachings of the Qur'an. This is because everyone is able to distinguish between good and evil, thanks to the mercy of conscience Allah has created in His servants. In the Qur'an, Allah warns us about satan's traps:
O Humanity! Allah's promise is true. Do not let the life of this world delude you and do not let the deluder delude you about Allah. Satan is your enemy, so treat him as an enemy. He summons his party so they will be among the people of the Searing Blaze. (Surah Fatir: 5-6)
There's another way by which satan deceives human beings in the name of Allah: he tempts them to commit sins, promising that Allah will forgive them. Allah's mercy is infinite and He may forgive all His servants who repent and asks for forgiveness. But it is insincere to sin deliberately with the idea that "Allah will forgive me in any case." The heart of anyone who persists in such immoral behavior will gradually grow hard and unfeeling. And acting without the fear of Allah can draw such a person into even greater evil. In the Qur'an, Allah gives the example of a person who knowingly commits sins with the idea that Allah will soon forgive him, and He warns humans against such deceptions of satan:
An evil generation has succeeded them, inheriting the Book, taking the goods of this lower world, and saying, "We will be forgiven." But if similar goods come to them again, they still take them. Has not a covenant been made with them in the Book, that they should only say the truth about Allah and have they not studied what is in it? The Final Abode is better for those who believe. Will you not use your intellect? (Surat al-A'raf: 169)
Of course, as stated at the beginning of this book, all these stratagems that satan employs can influence only those without faith. For those who have made the Qur'an their guide, there is an obvious difference between the voice of satan and the voice of their conscience. People's conscience always inspires them to act according to the moral teachings of the Qur'an. And no matter how insidious the stratagems satan tries to hide behind, he always urges them to behave in ways that will not be pleasing to Allah. Therefore, a believer immediately perceives the difference between these two, takes refuge in Allah against satan's influence, and listens to the voice of his conscience.
But those without faith have no such clarity. For this reason, satan can exert over them whatever influence he wishes. In the Qur’an, Allah draws attention to the different influence satan makes on believers and unbelievers.
Stir up any of them you can with your voice and rally against them your cavalry and your infantry and share with them in their children and their wealth and make them promises! The promise of satan is nothing but delusion. (Surat al-Isra': 64)
He approaches human beings using both human
and jinn demons
The Qur'an tells us that satan uses his minions in order to draw near to human beings. "... The demons inspire their friends to dispute with you..." (Surat al-An'am: 121) This shows us that satan is not a power that works on his own. The Qur'an tells us of the existence of demons from both humanity and from the jinn.
In this way We have appointed as enemies to every prophet demons from both humanity and from the jinn, who inspire each other with delusions by means of specious words – if your Lord had willed, they would not have done it, so abandon them and all they fabricate. (Surat al-An'am: 112)
Satan works in concert with human beings and the spirits that follow him, using them as vehicles to misguide other people. These individuals comply with satan's morality, making insincerity their guiding principle. They instill doubt and apprehension in the hearts of others in an attempt to divert them from the true path. In the Qur'an, Allah tells us of the insincere methods of thesedemons from both humanity and from the jinn. Refuge from their evil should be sought in the Lord.
Say: "I seek refuge with the Lord of humanity, the King of humanity, the God of humanity, from the evil of the insidious whisperer who whispers in people's breasts and comes from the jinn and from humanity." (Surat an-Nas: 1-6)
Another verse says that satan makes servants of these human beings and spirits who follow him. "… He said, I will take a certain fixed proportion of Your servants..." (Surat an-Nisa': 118) Individuals who become satan's servants do his will by constantly trying to distance people from the true path; they make it their duty to urge them toward evil. This activity of satan's minions is described in the Qur'an:
But as for their brothers, the visitors lead them further into error. And they do not stop at that! (Surat al-A'raf: 202)
The most obvious of these individuals who serve satan are called hypocrites in the Qur'an; they have sickness in their hearts rather than faith. All the moral depravity to be observed in a hypocrite's behavior will be examined in detail in the pages that follow: This depravity is the result of the dominance that satan holds over such people. These individuals use satan's insidious and secret methods and, like him, use their secret language to entice others into evil.
The Qur'an tells us that these hypocrites are seduced by satan's tactics and are overwhelmed with doubts:
They will call out to them, "Were we not with you?" They will reply, "Indeed you were. But you made trouble for yourselves and hung back and doubted and false hopes deluded you until Allah's command arrived. The deluder deluded you about Allah." (Surat al-Hadid: 14)
Satan aims to use these people to act in his name, to establish a mass of faithful followers and to lead them as he wishes, according to his ideals. Using these individuals, he wants to reach a wider mass of people with his suggestions. He wants them to speak with their own mouths the words he wishes them to say. He wants to keep his religion alive by instilling his own moral ideas into their morality. In this way, he won't frighten people because they will be unaware that he is instilling his religion into them, calling them to follow his path and making them his minions. And with their evil moral ideas, these people will draw others into the great error of satanic morality.
One single individual who adopts satan's religion will reach others around him and slowly invite them all to practice satanic morality. This single individual will make others adopt this false religion, until hundreds of people will become the ambassadors of satan. In this way, thousands of mouths will communicate satan's religion, thousands of bodies will present his morality and thousands of soldiers will divert people from the true path. Satan directs every soldier in his army at every moment and leads each of them to initiate a satanic activity.
This mass of minions is literally hypnotized by satan. Under his command, they are so faithful, obedient and disciplined that they take orders from no one else than satan, not even from their own consciences. Unaware of the painful end toward which they are being drawn, they defend satan and his religion throughout their lives. These people actually become satan's servants, his toys; they have surrendered to him their intellects, consciences, thoughts, wills, power of judgment and all their physical and mental functions. They finally act according to satan's will and start to live according to his ideas.
They do not fear Allah as they should and as a result, do not consider that the continual intimations coming into their minds are from satan. They believe these thoughts are their own and don't hesitate to put them into effect. And later, they adopt all these ideas just as satan has; they no longer need his suggestions to defend this religion. They defend it as much as he does and finally come to speak his silent language.
Everyone in this world is subject to the same testing. In this environment, therefore, satan tries to exert an effect not only on those who reject Allah, but also on believers. Some people say they have faith, but do not actually live it as they should; they do not totally submit themselves to Allah, using the Qur'an as a measure for everything they experience in life or living a good moral life out of fear of Allah. For this reason, such people are open to satan's intimations. Although they know how to oppose him and nullify his treacherous stratagems, they pay heed to what satan says.
They know the Qur'an and are well aware of the great harm satan can do to them, but do not consider this as carefully as they should. As a result, even while saying their prayers, they communicate satan's message in the attitudes they often display. Even while they are aware of their own mistaken attitudes and behavior, usually these people claim that they are faithful and morally upright and that they strenuously avoid satan and evil.
Satan makes these people believe that their good behavior and their avoidance of overt evil are enough. He makes them pay no attention to the evil they do in private and causes them to feel they don't need to avoid it. He tries to distance them from religious morality.
As a result of satan's stratagems, various characteristics come to light that are far removed from the ideal Muslim character. But there is only one Muslim character revealed by Allah in the Qur'an: This is the way that will please Allah, lead a person to the Garden and save him from Hell. Practicing just a portion of religious morality and assuming a character different from the Muslim ideal will draw a person unwittingly to Hell. Of course, if these people adopt the Qur'an as their guide and think according to what Allah has revealed, they may realize the situation they are in and be easily rescued from it. The Prophet (saas) warned believers in a hadith not to assist satan in any way:
"Do not help satan against your [Muslim] brother." (Sahih Bukhari)
In the following pages, we'll examine the various
personalities that satan shapes with the silent—and secret—language of evil; we
will see what kind of depraved behavior results from his influence over these
people. For these people, this silent language has become a kind of way of
life. We will show what kind of messages it sends and what these messages mean.
We can detect those who behave under the influence of evil and the silent language they speak only through the intelligence that faith gives. No noticeable characteristic distinguishes these people from others. Those who fall under the influence of satan do not say they worship satan (Surely Allah is beyond that!) and do not wear special clothing that symbolizes him. So, it is not easy to make such judgments about people on the basis of any symbolic peculiarities.
There are many proofs to be seen in the Qur'an that these people act under the influence of satan. This evidence may vary according to conditions and events, but one common factor that never changes is that all the qualities observed in those who speak the silent language of evil are negative—and cause them great spiritual and material harm.
We can classify some of the hidden evils that occur under satan's influence that draw people into a perverse moral understanding and an unhappy life according to the most basic qualities that mould a person's character:
One of satan's treacherous methods is to get people to cover up the evil they do by hiding behind a façade of innocence. He also shows those under his influence how to hide the evil they do.
Innocence is not a quality that people often stress in their daily lives. A good person behaves correctly; and everything he does is out in the open for all to see, not hidden. For this reason, he doesn't need to prove how well-intentioned and innocent he is. But those who do evil are always uneasy, knowing what they have done in secret. There's always some risk that what they have kept secret will come to light at any moment. To make themselves appear blameless in such an eventuality, they do everything possible to strengthen the impression that they are well-intentioned and innocent. In the same way, if the evil they do is discovered, they hide behind their innocence again, deceiving others into coming to their rescue.
But by taking refuge in innocence, they intend to repeat their hidden misdeeds if the need arises. They think that they will be much better able to make people around them accept what they've done if they cover it up well. If their pretended innocence yields results even once, they assume the same method will be successful every time.
Along with the proofs they offer for their innocence and to appear blameless, they also want to quiet their own consciences. This is because every evil act disquiets the human conscience. A human being who commits an evil act knows that it is against his conscience and, to escape the pangs of remorse, makes up excuses to make himself comfortable and justify what he did. But the only remedy for this pressure from one's conscience is to live according to the moral teachings of the Qur'an, where Allah tells us that we must repent when we commit any evil act and change the evil into good by performing pious works. As long as a person does not practice the morality of the Qur'an and tries to cover the evil he has done with a false veneer of innocence, he will only be drawn into more evil behavior. Besides, as the Qur'an says, every evil act will certainly be of no avail:
If anyone wants power, all power belongs to Allah. All good words rise to Him and He raises up all virtuous deeds. But people who plot evil deeds will suffer a harsh punishment. The plotting of such people is profitless. (Surah Fatir: 10)
All who act according to satan's intimations, like satan himself, develop special methods to make themselves appear innocent, and adopt certain ways of talking that they think will influence those around them.
Some of these methods can be classified as follows:
They try to make themselves appear innocent by
using the name of Allah
To appear well-intentioned and innocent, certain people resort to insincere methods; such as employing spiritual values. They do not conform their lives to the Qur'an but, if they must make themselves appear well-intentioned and sincere, they mention Allah's name and may speak of the importance of being religious, fearing Allah and acting according to their conscience. But while praising Allah's name, they do not consider His greatness, that He knows the acts of insincerity they have committed, or that He will punish them with the pangs of Hell.
There are many examples of this insincerity. One of the best known is the practice of swearing falsely by the name of Allah when individuals are faced with a difficult situation. By doing this, they think they can persuade others, though there is no convincing proof of their innocence and even if their error obvious. They think they will leave a deep impression on people by taking an oath in Allah's name—and believe this method will be especially effective with religious people.
In order to make themselves appear innocent, these people are not limited to using Allah's name in their oaths, but use as many religious elements as possible. In order to legitimize their depraved attitudes and behavior, they speak at great length about faith. They tell others that they give much importance to correct moral actions, how carefully they avoid evil and how scrupulously they behave. They claim to avoid any kind of wrong behavior because they are wary of the punishments they will receive in the Afterlife. But if they come across any situation that conflicts with their own interests, their insincerity becomes evident when they behave in a manner contrary to what they have professed.
Another similarly insincere method they use is to interpret verses of the Qur'an according to their own warped thinking. This they do to cover up the evil they have done and make it appear legitimate. Allah says in the Qur'an that He has sent down all the verses of the Qur'an in very clear language. Therefore, their meaning is very clear. But in order to prove themselves right, those who have fallen under the influence of satan are audacious enough to try to make verses of the Qur'an support their own interpretations.
Such satanic methods can indeed be quite persuasive with people who do not judge events with an intelligence based in the Qur'an. But Muslims evaluate the attitude and behavior of others according to the criteria that Allah has revealed in the Qur'an. A person may mention Allah's name only with his tongue or take an oath in His name; he may speak about religious matters and say how clean his heart is. But this is not enough to convince anyone of his sincerity, for these are the behaviors that can be imitated by those who are sick in their hearts to deceive believers. The sign of true sincerity is a person who behaves the way he speaks and is careful to avoid evil, whether secret or in the open.
A person who displays any kind of unseemly behavior must remember that Allah sees all the evil a person does, no matter how well he may hide it. The Qur'an tells us that Allah knows every evil deed that is done and every insincere excuse offered to cover it up. "... not one thing about them will be hidden from Allah..." (Surah Ghafir: 16) For this reason, a person must behave knowing that he will be confronted with all these things on the Day of Judgment and must aim to live a moral life pleasing to Allah.
They lie continually to prove their innocence
Those under the influence of satan resort to lying to make themselves appear innocent. Famous Islamic scholar Abdul Qadir al-Jaylani had this to say about satan: "What has satan not done to you? He has made you love lies. He has made evil acts seem attractive to you." ('Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Ilahi Armagan (Divine Gift), translated by Abdulkadir Akcicek (Ankara: Rahmet Publications, 1962), 2:16.) But by lying, we do not mean to hide something by saying that it is the exact opposite of what it clearly is. Satan teaches the silent language of evil and methods of insincere discourse whose falsity is very difficult to detect. This allows the people to believe it is not a lie in any real sense. In this way, satan wants lies, unrecognized as such, to circulate widely among people.
Although they tell many lies, therefore, such people see themselves as blameless of such perverse behavior. By this method of satan, they whitewash their lies by giving them different names. For example, they use such weak explanations as "I only said it, I didn't mean it," or "I must not have explained it very well," and "I guess I don't remember," or "I must have forgotten to tell you that part," and " I must have confused it with something else." They try to show that their lie was harmless and not ill-intended; and also make themselves believe these explanations. If listeners perceive that what they said is untrue, they claim that it was never their intention to tell a lie. They affirm that the important thing was their heartfelt "intention" while they were saying these things; and that they were sure of the rightness of their intention. However, this is yet another lie. And even though they may call upon Allah as a witness to the purity of their heart, He knows that they are telling a lie.
Satan leads the kind of people whom he can not urge openly to sin by these kinds of insidious methods into dishonesty. Sometimes he tells them that something is different, more or less than it actually is; or he changes what was said in the attempt to pervert the meaning of the words. The Qur'an tells us about these people who always totally distort the truth:
Woe to every wicked liar. (Surat al-Jathiyya: 7)
Acting under the influence of satan, these people behave incorrectly. Later, or even while committing the act, they decide how to explain it away. Sometimes they don't think about the result, and when what they have done becomes known, they instinctively declare their innocence. Of course, satan makes these people react in this way. He inspires in them how best to misrepresent the truth in any situation and to insist on their innocence by producing compelling proof.
But usually this is just one in a series of many lies. For this reason, those fallen under satan's influence start to lie constantly in order to appear innocent. Just to cover up a single instance of insincerity, they panic and give a false account of what they did in terms of their own warped logic. When found out, they do not know what to do; but claim they have been misunderstood and treated unjustly and try to get out of it by changing the subject. As we said earlier, they do not hesitate to swear false oaths to protest their innocence.
No doubt this stems from two facts: They don't know Allah as they should, and are unaware of what a great responsibility it is to take an oath in His name. Because they do not fear Him as they should, they display an unseemly audacity in this matter. While calling on Allah to a witness their false oaths, they do not even consider that He hears and knows all secrets. Moreover, because of satan's influence, they are able to ignore that influence even when someone brings it to their attention. However, they actually tell these lies to Allah. This is stated in the Qur'an: "... They tell a lie against Allah and they know it." (Surah Al 'Imran: 78)
Allah also indicates in the Qur'an that such people must not be trusted:
But do not obey any vile swearer of oaths... (Surat al-Qalam: 10)
The Qur'an tells us that when Yusuf's (as) brothers wanted to hide the evil they had devised against him, they too resorted to telling lies. First, the brothers planned to kill Yusuf (as); later, they said they wanted what was good for their brother, and asked their father to let him go with them.
They said, "Our Father! What is wrong with you that you refuse to trust us with Yusuf when in truth we only wish him well? Why don't you send him out with us tomorrow so he can enjoy himself and play about? All of us will make sure that he is safe." (Surah Yusuf: 11-12)
Later, they left Yusuf (as) in the bottom of a well and went back to their father with another lie that he had been carried off by a wolf. They tried to say they were innocent by saying, "But you are never going to believe us now..."
That night they came back to their father in tears, saying, "Father, we went out to run a race and left Yusuf together with our things and then a wolf appeared and ate him up but you are never going to believe us now, not even though we really tell the truth." (Surah Yusuf: 16-17)
Their father realized that they were lying; and said he did not trust them and that he took refuge in Allah against their evil designs:
They then produced his shirt with false blood on it. He said, "It is merely that your lower selves have suggested something to you which you did; but beauty lies in showing steadfastness. It is Allah alone Who is my Help in face of the event that you describe." (Surah Yusuf: 18)
Our Prophet (saas) tells believers that they must avoid telling lies as such:
"On the Resurrection Day, the worst men in Allah's sight will be the liars, the proud, and those who entertained hatred in the mind of their friends." (Imam al-Ghazzali, Ihya Ulum-Id-Din, 3:139)
"A man is enrolled near Allah as a liar if he is accustomed to false speaking and false discussions." (Imam al-Ghazzali, Ihya Ulum-Id-Din, 3:119)
"I advise you to fear Allah, to speak the truth, to fulfill a trust, to fulfill a promise, to greet each other with "peace" [salam], and to be humble." (Imam al-Ghazzali, Ihya Ulum-Id-Din, 3:122)
"The Messenger of Allah (saas) was asked, 'Can a believer be a liar?' He (saas) said: 'No.'" (Imam al-Ghazzali, Ihya Ulum-Id-Din, 3:120)
"Speak the truth even though it might be bitter." (Bayhaqi, cited in Mishkat-ul Masabih by Maulana Fazlul Karim, (New Delhi: Islamic Book Service, 2001), 1:469)
They try to shift onto others responsibility for
their evil acts
In the Qur'an, Allah warns people against nursing a desire in their hearts to claim purity for themselves. "... He has most knowledge of you when He first produced you from the earth, and when you were embryos in your mothers' wombs. So do not claim purity for yourselves. He knows best those who guard against evil." (Surat an-Najm: 32) But some who do not organize their behavior as the moral teachings of the Qur'an require cover up the evil in their hearts instead of ridding themselves of it. To cover up the evil and acquit themselves, sometimes they place responsibility for their insincere actions on others. But this does not mean that they just crassly blame someone else for something they did wrong. For example, when someone is asked "Did you take this thing?" and he lies, saying he did not but someone else did, then his lie will become obvious when that other person is asked if he contributed. Those who know that Allah forbids lying, would never knowingly and in conscience tell a lie.
Therefore, satan usually cannot manage to get people who hesitate to do evil publicly to tell lies openly. He will urge them to engage in activities abetted by his subtle methods. One such method is to have an evildoer soothe his conscience by putting the responsibility for his actions on someone else.
In this way, in order to declare their own innocence, those whom satan has deceived distort others' well-intentioned words and actions to justify their own behavior. They make sure that those others are known for their sincerity, honesty, and reliability and good moral character. They contend that they were well-intentioned and doing only what these individuals had told them to. If any wrong was done, they assert, the responsibility lies with those individuals whose advice they followed. According to their warped thinking, they have done nothing wrong; but only took advice from people they thought to be honest, sincere and trustworthy. Therefore, they are to blame for what happened.
In order to excuse their unseemly behavior, these people also distort the meaning of words. They make use of the fact that one word may have several meanings in order to get others to misperceive what they really mean. The Qur'an tells us about the insincere behavior of such people: "But those who did wrong substituted words other than those they had been given..." (Surat al-Baqara: 59) With such insidious methods, satan draws those under his influence into evil.
They try to justify their behavior by saying that
everyone makes the same mistakes
Those under satan's influence try to justify their errors by pointing to others who commit the same ones. This is actually, one of satan's better-known methods; while encouraging others toward evil, he gives them negative examples of others around them. To make them believe that certain kinds of behavior are not wrong, he shows them other people who do the same. Of course, these others have consciences to tell them what is right and wrong. But in the desire to ease their guilt, they knowingly excuse themselves by blaming satan's instigations.
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