The Spies of Satan

🌼🔆🌼The Substitution of Guidance🌼🔆🌼

🌹🔅☘️ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحيمِ ☘️🔅🌹

🔅🌹 “The Ominous Effects of Laziness and Love of Comfort”  “The Mirage of Heroism”  “The Substitution of the Triangle of Servitude” “Commentary on Supplication 20 of Sahifa Sajjadiyya”  “Session 225” and … Summary with Addendum       1403.05.18    Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat) 110.141(903)  🌹🔅

🌼Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat) 110.141(903)🌼

🔅🌼 Map and Geography of the Session: The Spies of Satan🌼🔅

🌼 A Counterfeit of Truth – What happens to a person if he makes a counterfeit of the sun? What happens to nature? Will the beautiful flowers ever be able to grow again? If so, eyes will no longer be illuminated.

🌼 If the intellect is taken from a person and an artificial conception is implanted in him, darkness will take the place of light.

🌼 If, instead of tawhid, a person takes up shirk and imagines that he is a monotheist, where will the end of his road lead?

🌼  All of this will come about by changing the rails of servitude.

🌼  The pseudo-scholars are truly the spies of Satan. Satan has no possibility of penetrating the human heart, but woe betide the pseudo-scholars who provide Satan with this possibility of penetrating the hearts of the believers.

🌼  A person wants to reach the destination quickly, without running or clinging to a cliff; he wants to raise himself to the summit. Now, if someone appears who sings him a lullaby to sleep and then issues commands to him that are outwardly hopeful but false, the lazy person rushes to welcome these scholars and throws his Hereafter to the winds.

🌼 This statement that some people put forward — “Do whatever you want, but keep your heart pure” — or the statement “Do whatever you want, but serve the people” — is a kind of deception of lazy and comfort-seeking individuals.

🌼  One who abandons the recommended acts (mustahabbat) has also abandoned service to the people. The recommended acts are the blessing of attending to people’s affairs; eliminating the recommended acts causes the market of service to the people to stagnate.

🌼  The champions of service to the people are people of night vigil (tahajjud).

🌼 Whoever speaks contrary to the Quran and the Ahl al-Bayt has, in a sense, invited to shirk. No virtuous person will bear the burden of anyone else; no heavily laden soul will carry another’s load. Let us not be deceived by anyone.

🌼  The most impure heart is the heart of the polytheists. The intention to sin pollutes the heart — how much more so the actual commission of sin.

🌼  No test is easy; if a test were easy, it would no longer be a test. Heroism is not compatible with laziness and love of comfort. To think that I can enjoy the pleasures of this world and at the same time become a champion of servitude is impossible.

🌼  A person is cut off from the path of his innate nature (fitra). Human beings are inherently people of tawhid, but if a counterfeit of tawhid and the Resurrection is made and presented to them, they may suffer harm from that quarter.

🌼  The pulse of servitude is “righteous guidance, the path of truth, and the intention of growth.”

🌼  We must recognise our Imam of the Time in pure and faithful frames; if we do not recognise him, we will fall victim to substitution.

🌼 One of the important and obligatory services to the people is enjoining good and forbidding evil.

🌼 We must serve people’s stomachs, or their minds and beliefs and convictions. Even our night prayer is a service to the people, for it will increase the purity of the universe.

🌼 Incomplete knowledge of the Two Weighty Things (Thaqalayn) is a betrayal of the Two Weighty Things. Whoever conforms sciences other than those of the Two Weighty Things to the Two Weighty Things — this is a kind of injustice against the Two Weighty Things.

🌼 Let us beware of wavering scholars — those who have not been able to connect themselves to the truth and are constantly oscillating between truth and falsehood. Raw minds are deceived by them. These people will stand against the Imam of the Time, for they will not find him in agreement with their own thoughts.

🌼 The matter of the Appearance will be sudden. For some, it will be an awakening after a nightmare; for others, an awakening after an awakening. For some, it will be an all-encompassing mercy, and for others, a punishment in consequence.

🌼  Before the One, All-Powerful Lord asks His questions, let us answer them! Who is the All-Powerful Commander? Who is the Sovereign?

🔅🌼 The slothful are bound for Saqar 🌼🔅

🌹The self-seeking person wants to gain the greatest reward with the least effort. This is not about the exceptions—إلا الذين.

🌹Fostering laziness and indulging in it are among the secrets of Satan’s power over humanity.

🌹The desire for ease can lead a person to every kind of degradation. It is one of Satan’s means of turning people away from righteous guidance and the path of truth.

🌹Among the causes of a person’s moral degeneration are the pursuit of ease and laziness.

🌹Whatever comes easily loses its meaning as a test; no test is easy.

🔅🌼 The illusion of heroism 🌼🔅

🌹Heroism is incompatible with laziness and the pursuit of ease.

🌹The self-seeking person wants to pass, win, and become a hero without being tested. This false mindset leads them to accept any substitute for the truth.

🌹People want to attain eternal bliss through the pursuit of ease, too. In this blind longing, they are powerfully drawn to anyone who lulls them to sleep, feeds them false hopes, and beguiles them with sweet deception.

🔅🌼 Satan’s aunt, up to bear’s harm 🌼🔅

🌹Those who, out of misplaced concern, hold people back from facing realities and making progress are Satan’s aunts.

🌹Satan’s aunt is his unwitting secret agent. They may well be his unpaid servants.

🌹To lull the innate nature to sleep and silence the conscience is to extinguish the impulse to serve God. Satan’s human allies, under various scholarly guises, blunt and lull people’s innate nature and conscience.

🌹If people mistake their inclinations for what is in keeping with their innate nature, they are easily deceived, eyes and ears shut. They are readily bitten and overcome by a counterfeit of their innate nature. That is why some work to weaken people’s beliefs by exploiting this vulnerability.

🌹When a self-seeking, comfort-loving person, caught up in worldly life, comes to regard certain behaviours as innate, they can easily lose their faith.

🌹Human beings are innately inclined to believe in divine oneness, the Resurrection, and prophethood. Portraying sins and reprehensible acts as in keeping with this innate nature intensifies the desire of such people to abandon their beliefs.

🌹In the realm of innate nature, some are utterly consumed, some half-consumed, and a few possess a firm, unyielding innate nature.  Those who are utterly consumed are the people whose hearts have been sealed.

🌹Those who are half-consumed still retain some connections. If they entrust their hearts and minds to the ignorant, they will be wholly consumed without even knowing it. They travel the road of misguidance, imagining they are on the road of guidance. This group is especially dangerous: in the name of religion and faith, they betray religion and faith.

🔅🌼 The misguided who pose as scholars imagine themselves guided 🌼🔅

🌹The misguided who pose as scholars are Satan’s aides and spies. The trust people place in them opens the gates through which Satan can gain access to them.

🌻🔆الأعراف : 29   قُلْ أَمَرَ رَبِّي بِالْقِسْطِ وَ أَقيمُوا وُجُوهَكُمْ عِنْدَ كُلِّ مَسْجِدٍ وَ ادْعُوهُ مُخْلِصينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ كَما بَدَأَكُمْ تَعُودُونَ

🔆Say: “My Lord has commanded justice. Set your faces toward Him at every place of worship, and call upon Him, devoting your religion sincerely to Him. Just as He created you in the beginning, so shall you return.

🌻🔆الأعراف : 30 فَريقاً هَدى‏ وَ فَريقاً حَقَّ عَلَيْهِمُ الضَّلالَةُ إِنَّهُمُ اتَّخَذُوا الشَّياطينَ أَوْلِياءَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ وَ يَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُمْ مُهْتَدُونَ

🔆  He has guided one group, while another has been rightly condemned to error, for they have taken devils as their protectors instead of God, yet imagine themselves to be rightly guided.

🔅🌼 Those who choose substitutes instead of righteous guidance are deluded in their thinking 🌼🔅

🌹 Those who choose a substitute for righteous guidance come to regard their own wicked deeds and thoughts as good.

🌹 Those who choose a guide other than the divine proofs for themselves are, as it were, associating others with God.

🌻🔆الكهف : 102   أَ فَحَسِبَ الَّذينَ كَفَرُوا أَنْ يَتَّخِذُوا عِبادي مِنْ دُوني‏ أَوْلِياءَ إِنَّا أَعْتَدْنا جَهَنَّمَ لِلْكافِرينَ نُزُلاً

🔆Do those who disbelieve think that they can take My servants as allies and protectors instead of Me? We have surely prepared Hell as a welcome for the disbelievers.

🌻🔆الكهف : 103   قُلْ هَلْ نُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِالْأَخْسَرينَ أَعْمالاً

🔆Say: “Shall we tell you who are the greatest losers in their deeds?”

🌻🔆الكهف : 104 الَّذينَ ضَلَّ سَعْيُهُمْ فِي الْحَياةِ الدُّنْيا وَ هُمْ يَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُمْ يُحْسِنُونَ صُنْعاً

🔆They are those whose efforts in the life of this world have come to nothing, while they think they are doing good.

🔅🌼Turning away from the Two Weighty Things is forgetting the remembrance of God 🌼🔅

🌹 Whoever accepts substitutes for the Two Weighty Things has turned away from the remembrance of God.

🌻🔆الزخرف : 36   وَ مَنْ يَعْشُ عَنْ ذِكْرِ الرَّحْمنِ نُقَيِّضْ لَهُ شَيْطاناً فَهُوَ لَهُ قَرينٌ

🔆Whoever turns away from the remembrance of the All-Merciful, We appoint a devil to be his constant companion.

🌻🔆الزخرف : 37 وَ إِنَّهُمْ لَيَصُدُّونَهُمْ عَنِ السَّبيلِ وَ يَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُمْ مُهْتَدُونَ

🔆Those devils surely turn them away from the path, yet they think they are rightly guided.

🔅🌼A substitute for what is precious🌼🔅

🌹 Substituting something else for “righteous guidance, the path of truth, and the intention to grow” is a root cause of misguidance.

🌹 Everything precious has a counterfeit: no one makes counterfeits of things of little value. But anything of worth may be counterfeited, and in some cases every value may be made worthless.

🌹 Seeking to persuade people to settle for the bare minimum is one sign of deviation.

🌹 A partial understanding of the Quran and the Ahl al-Bayt—or mixing Quranic and narrational sciences with degraded disciplines—is a betrayal of the Quran and the Ahl al-Bayt.

🔅🌼The sun of wilayah has no substitute 🌼🔅

🌹 Accept scholars and trusted authorities on the basis of investigation, not imitation, propaganda, or indoctrination. Beware of those who merely pose as scholars: they lay the tracks for the thoughts and actions of their followers.

🌹 For some, the advent will be like death; for others, like waking after a deep sleep,

and for still others, like awakening after already being awake—a vision accompanied by a doubled sense of life. For some it will be boundless mercy, and for others a final punishment.

🌹 The era of the Greater Occultation is a time of testing and preparation, not a recess, a shutdown, or an occasion for sin.

🌹 Behold Imam al-Mahdi, peace be upon him, through the many pure frames and in pure, virtuous souls.

🔅🌼Vacillating scholars🌼🔅

🌹 Hypocrites waver between truth and falsehood. They hang suspended between the two, lost between faith and disbelief.

🌹 Hypocritical scholars waver between disbelief and faith. Not only do they themselves hang suspended between truth and falsehood; they keep their followers suspended there too. “Vacillating scholars” are spies of Satan, the accursed, who lure multitudes of people into his trap.

🌻🔆النساء : 142   إِنَّ الْمُنافِقينَ يُخادِعُونَ اللَّهَ وَ هُوَ خادِعُهُمْ وَ إِذا قامُوا إِلَى الصَّلاةِ قامُوا كُسالى‏ يُراؤُنَ النَّاسَ وَ لا يَذْكُرُونَ اللَّهَ إِلاَّ قَليلاً

🔆The hypocrites seek to deceive God, but He turns their deception back upon them. When they rise to pray, they do so reluctantly, showing off before people and remembering God only a little.

🌻🔆Al-Nisaʾ: 143   مُذَبْذَبينَ بَيْنَ ذلِكَ لا إِلى‏ هؤُلاءِ وَ لا إِلى‏ هؤُلاءِ وَ مَنْ يُضْلِلِ اللَّهُ فَلَنْ تَجِدَ لَهُ سَبيلاً

🔆They waver between the two: neither with these—the believers—nor with those—the disbelievers. And whoever God leads astray, you will never find a way for them.

🌹The hypocrites drift between disbelief and faith, attached neither to the believers nor to the disbelievers. They remain suspended, unable to make up their minds.

🔅🌼Who holds sovereignty?🌼🔅

🌻🔆Ghafir: 16   يَوْمَ هُمْ بارِزُونَ لا يَخْفى‏ عَلَى اللَّهِ مِنْهُمْ شَيْ‏ءٌ لِمَنِ الْمُلْكُ الْيَوْمَ لِلَّهِ الْواحِدِ الْقَهَّارِ

The Day they all come into the open, nothing about them will be hidden from God. “To whom does sovereignty belong today?” To God alone, the All-Subduing.

🌹Who holds sovereignty? In whose hands is the universe?

🌷🔆عَنْ عُبَيْدِ بْنِ زُرَارَةَ، قَالَ: سَمِعْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ اللَّهِ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ) يَقُولُ: «إِذَا أَمَاتَ اللَّهُ أَهْلَ الْأَرْضِ لَبِثَ كَمِثْلِ مَا خَلَقَ الْخَلْقَ، وَ مِثْلِ مَا أَمَاتَهُمْ، وَ أَضْعَافَ‏ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ أَمَاتَ أَهْلَ السَّمَاءِ الدُّنْيَا، ثُمَّ لَبِثَ مِثْلَ مَا خَلَقَ الْخَلْقَ وَ مِثْلَ مَا أَمَاتَ أَهْلَ الْأَرْضِ وَ أَهْلَ السَّمَاءِ الدُّنْيَا وَ أَضْعَافَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ أَمَاتَ أَهْلَ السَّمَاءِ الثَّانِيَةِ، ثُمَّ لَبِثَ مِثْلَ مَا خَلَقَ الْخَلْقَ وَ مِثْلَ مَا أَمَاتَ أَهْلَ الْأَرْضِ وَ أَهْلَ السَّمَاءِ الدُّنْيَا وَ السَّمَاءِ الثَّانِيَةِ وَ أَضْعَافَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ أَمَاتَ أَهْلَ السَّمَاءِ الثَّالِثَةِ، ثُمَّ لَبِثَ مِثْلَ مَا خَلَقَ الْخَلْقَ وَ مِثْلَ مَا أَمَاتَ أَهْلَ الْأَرْضِ وَ أَهْلَ السَّمَاءِ الدُّنْيَا وَ السَّمَاءِ الثَّانِيَةِ وَ السَّمَاءِ الثَّالِثَةِ وَ أَضْعَافَ ذَلِكَ، وَ فِي كُلِّ سَمَاءٍ مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ وَ أَضْعَافَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ أَمَاتَ مِيكَائِيلَ، ثُمَّ لَبِثَ مِثْلَ مَا خَلَقَ الْخَلْقَ وَ مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ كُلِّهِ وَ أَضْعَافَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ أَمَاتَ جَبْرَئِيلَ، ثُمَّ لَبِثَ مِثْلَ مَا خَلَقَ الْخَلْقَ وَ مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ كُلِّهِ وَ أَضْعَافَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ أَمَاتَ إِسْرَافِيلَ، ثُمَّ لَبِثَ مِثْلَ مَا خَلَقَ الْخَلْقَ وَ مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ كُلِّهِ وَ أَضْعَافَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ أَمَاتَ مَلَكَ الْمَوْتِ ثُمَّ لَبِثَ مِثْلَ مَا خَلَقَ الْخَلْقَ وَ مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ وَ أَضْعَافَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ يَقُولُ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَ جَلَّ: لِمَنِ الْمُلْكُ الْيَوْمَ؟ فَيَرُدُّ اللَّهُ عَلَى نَفْسِهِ: لِلَّهِ الْوَاحِدِ الْقَهَّارِ، وَ أَيْنَ الْجَبَّارُونَ؟ وَ أَيْنَ الَّذِينَ ادَّعَوْا مَعِي إِلَهاً آخَرَ؟ أَيْنَ الْمُتَكَبِّرُونَ وَ نَحْوُهُمْ‏؟ ثُمَّ يَبْعَثُ الْخَلْقَ».

قَالَ عُبَيْدُ بْنُ زُرَارَةَ: فَقُلْتُ: إِنَّ هَذَا الْأَمْرَ كَائِنٌ [كَأَنِّي‏] طَوَّلْتُ ذَلِكَ؟ فَقَالَ: «أَ رَأَيْتَ مَا كَانَ، هَلْ عَلِمْتَ بِهِ؟» فَقُلْتُ: لَا، فَقَالَ: «فَكَذَلِكَ هَذَا».[1]

🔅🌼Satan’s spies🌼🔅

🌹Satan, too, has spies among people. Some make it possible for Satan to penetrate those who would otherwise be impervious to him. They are usually people who seem righteous, are well-known, and pose as scholars despite their ignorance.

🔅🌼Satan’s syringe and infusion🌼🔅

🌹Satan injects his germs into the hearts of believers who would otherwise be impervious to him, using people who seem righteous and are well-known.

🌹God’s proof is without equal, as is the Glorious Book of God; neither has a substitute. To fashion substitutes for them is to put darkness in place of light—a course taken only after those who choose substitutes have become blind, deaf, and mute.

🌹Only an immature mind could claim that the Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt have substitutes.

🌹Let us beware of minds that replace one thing with another.  

🌹Let us look carefully: what have we hung in the frame of our primordial nature?!  Keep your primordial nature open.

🔅🌼No one of virtue bears another’s burden🌼🔅

🌱 A saying attributed to Fazel: “I’ve spent fifty years studying Islam. Let me sum it up for you: fulfil your obligations, and instead of spending your time on recommended acts, help people as much as you can; make things easier for them. If anyone questions you on the Day of Judgment, say: ‘Fazel told me to.’”[2]

🌹 Beware of subtle suggestions that present recommended acts as an obstacle to serving people.

🌹 Recommended acts bring blessing and vitality to service to others.

🌹 Abandoning recommended acts makes the business of serving people languish; it does not make it thrive.

🌹 Experience has shown that those devoted to night vigil, supererogatory prayers and other recommended acts are champions of service to others.

🌻🔆Al-An‘am: 164   قُلْ أَ غَيْرَ اللَّهِ أَبْغي‏ رَبًّا وَ هُوَ رَبُّ كُلِّ شَيْ‏ءٍ وَ لا تَكْسِبُ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ إِلاَّ عَلَيْها وَ لا تَزِرُ وازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ أُخْرى‏ ثُمَّ إِلى‏ رَبِّكُمْ مَرْجِعُكُمْ فَيُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِما كُنْتُمْ فيهِ تَخْتَلِفُونَ

🔆Say: “Shall I seek a lord other than God, when He is the Lord of all things? No one does evil except to their own detriment, and no burden-bearer bears another’s burden. Then you will all return to your Lord, and He will tell you about that over which you differed.”

🌹 Whoever abandons the words of God and His appointed guide, and makes the words of any person of learning their standard for action when they contradict the Two Weighty Things, has committed shirk.

🌹 A true and devoted friend is one who urges you towards eternal bliss and God’s good pleasure—not one who encourages you to settle for the bare minimum, but one who spurs you on to the utmost. They should tell you: practise every recommended act, and redouble your service to people.

🌹 Recommended acts are not only service to people; they are service to all creation, for they have a positive effect on the whole universe.

🌹 Among the ways of serving people are enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong; these rank among the highest forms of public service.

Recommended acts, spiritual mysteries, prayers and the excellence of servitude to God are manifest, hidden and immense acts of service to people, all of nature and every being—in short, to the whole universe.

🌹 Service to people is not limited to feeding them; spiritual and intellectual forms of service must also be strengthened.

🔅🌼Keep your heart pure🌼🔅

🌹 When the heart is emptied of the spirit of faith and reason, the vices of character drag it into filth and impurity.

🌻🔆Al-Tawbah: 28   يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنُوا إِنَّمَا الْمُشْرِكُونَ نَجَسٌ فَلا يَقْرَبُوا الْمَسْجِدَ الْحَرامَ بَعْدَ عامِهِمْ هذا وَ إِنْ خِفْتُمْ عَيْلَةً فَسَوْفَ يُغْنيكُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ إِنْ شاءَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَليمٌ حَكيمٌ

🔆O you who believe! The polytheists are impure, so they must not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year. If you fear poverty, God will enrich you through His bounty whenever He wills. God is All-Knowing, All-Wise.

🌹 The most impure heart is the heart of the polytheist. When the heart becomes impure, the human being’s whole domain—body and spirit—is defiled.

🌹 Those who sin are factories of filth and producers of impurity. The sinner also consumes impurity: with heart and soul, they take the filth of sin as nourishment; they feed on the spirit of impurity.

🌼Ali Sa‘i (Abdullah Meshkat) 110.141 (903)🌼

[1] Al-Burhan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an, vol. 4, p. 751  Bahrani, Hashem ibn Sulayman, Mo’assese-ye Be‘that, Department of Islamic Studies, Iran, Qom, 1st ed., 1415 AH.

[2]Attributed to Fazel Lankarani (from the late Fazel Lankarani’s final instructions)