| One of the ways Satan leads human beings astray is by
making evil look good. On this point, ibn
al-Qayyim wrote the following:
'From his strategem is that he always bewitches the mind
until he can deceive the person. No one is safe from his bewitching except whomsoever
Allah wills. He makes good looking to him what harms him the most, until he imagines that
it is the most beneficial act for himself. And he makes him flee from the most beneficial
act until he thinks it is something harmful to him. Certainly, there is no god but Allah.
How many humans have been tested by such sorcery. How many hearts have been kept from
Islam, faith and goodness [by such sorcery]. And how many support and present falsehood in
the best form and hate truth and present it in the worst form [because of his deception].
And how much falseness is adorned and shown in a desirious manner to the alert. And how
much falseness is spread among the wise. He is the one who bewitches the mind until it
follows different desires and various evil opinions. He makes them follow every path of
misguidance. He leads them to actions, one after another, that cause their destruction. He
makes appealing to them the worship of idols, the breaking of familial relationships, the
killing of daughters, marrying one's mother and so on. And he promises them the victory of
paradise with their infidelity, wickedness and acts of disobedience. He presents to them
polytheism in the most honorable fashion. And he presents rejection of Allah's attributes,
of His transcendence and of His speech in the guise of anti-anthropomorphism of Allah. He
presents abandoning ordering good and eradicating evil in the guise of having mercy for
others, behaving with others in a good manner, and applying the verse, "O believers, you are in charge of your own souls" (al-Maidah
105). And he presents turning away from what has come from the Messenger in the
guise of blindly following the Imams (taqleed) and the sufficiency of following one who is
more knowledgeable. And he presents hypocrisy and compromising with respect to Allah's
religion in the guise of being flexible and mixing admirably with the people.' |