The Whisperers Who Withdraw: The Joy of Devotion and Satan’s Temptations

📆 Date: 1403/03/10 – 21 Dhu al-Qaʿdah 1445
📌 Meshkat-e Noor session
👤 Lecture by Master Ali Saei

🗒 Some of the points discussed in the session:
📌 Please note that the hadiths cited in this text have been paraphrased. For the complete hadiths, please refer to the lecture.

🌼 The way of the Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt is to foster the joy of worshipful devotion.
🌼 The Imam wants to lead us to the highest virtues; he is not content with noble character alone and does not consider it sufficient.
🌼 We must strive to bring our faith to its fullest, our certainty to its highest degree, and our intentions and deeds to their best.
🌼 The Imam teaches us to ask God to bring our intentions to abundance through His grace!
🌼 Like a tree whose fruit is meant to grow ever sweeter.
🌼 Is this enough? (Referring to passages from Duʿa 20.) No—we must once again refine our certainty.
🌼 Let us be careful not to let afflictions take root in the blessed tree of our being—afflictions such as self-admiration.
🌼 We must attain righteous guidance and enter the path of truth.
🌼 The best intentions, even in abundance, are not enough! An intention must attain maturity; our work is not done until it has grown to full maturity.
🌼 The whisperers who slink away surround us and continually urge us toward sin, making sin seem tempting.
🌼 Day and night, we are exposed to such temptations. The foulest and most poisonous of them is the temptation toward sin: it begins with frivolity and ends in sin.
🌼 The whisperers who slink away lure people toward sin by stirring and inflaming their desires.
🌼 Let us not clear the way to sin; let us ring it with barbed wire!
🌼 The most beautiful oath that can be broken is the oath broken by Satan.
🌼 If we make the Lord our trustee, we will be safe from all these temptations.
🌼 Let us not cultivate a desire to sin by stressing that God is the Most Merciful of the merciful; God’s boundless mercy is no license to sin.
📌 Critique of the presentation of a hadith
Whoever weeps, or causes someone to weep (for Imam Husayn)—whether this happens a hundred times or they make a hundred people weep—Paradise is guaranteed for such a person! Then, when this point is presented, it is reduced to a single instance (of making someone weep or weeping), without mentioning the context before or after it.
🌼 إِنَّما يَتَقَبَّلُ اللهُ مِنَ الْمُتَّقينَ
🌼 (Hadith) Whoever visits the tomb of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him), knowing his rightful status and seeking God’s pleasure through the visit, will have their past and future sins forgiven by God.
🌼 The first condition, then, is to know his rightful status; the second, to seek God’s pleasure; and the third, not to pursue worldly gain.
🌼 Whoever enters the abode of the Hereafter without repentance will not be encompassed by God’s mercy.
🌼 وَاكْتُبْ لَنَا فِي هَٰذِهِ الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ إِنَّا هُدْنَا إِلَيْكَ ۚ قَالَ عَذَابِي أُصِيبُ بِهِ مَنْ أَشَاءُ ۖ وَرَحْمَتِي وَسِعَتْ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ ۚ فَسَأَكْتُبُهَا لِلَّذِينَ يَتَّقُونَ وَيُؤْتُونَ الزَّكَاةَ وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ بِآيَاتِنَا يُؤْمِنُونَ
🌼 Do the God-fearing also need God’s all-encompassing mercy?
🌼 God’s mercy will encompass the God-fearing, though we know that God-consciousness itself has degrees.
🌼وَاتَّقُوا يَوْمًا لَا تَجْزِي نَفْسٌ عَنْ نَفْسٍ شَيْئًا وَلَا يُقْبَلُ مِنْهَا شَفَاعَةٌ وَلَا يُؤْخَذُ مِنْهَا عَدْلٌ وَلَا هُمْ يُنْصَرُونَ
🌼 Fear the Day when no one will bear another’s punishment.
🌼 Thus, intercession applies to those within the sphere of faith and piety; whoever leaves that sphere will not be included.
🌼 Let us not use poetry to lead people into sin.
🌼 (Hadith) The Messenger of God, Muhammad Mustafa (PBUH), says: “A time will come when eloquence becomes a means of sorcery: it enchants hearts and makes falsehood appear to be truth. Knowledge may even become an instrument of ignorance, as learned people spread ignorance.”
🌼 Eloquence, then, can become sorcery. Its enchantment is all the stronger in poetry.
🌼 The joy found in weeping before God, and the uplift one feels after mourning Imam Husayn (peace be upon him), cannot be found in any antidepressant.
🌼 They lull people into sin with poetry.
When a sorcerer sees that their audience is naïve, they take them for a ride in their own minds.
🌼 A critique of several poems
🌼 Recommended acts should be set aside when they prevent us from fulfilling our obligations.
🌼 Priority should be given to the most important recommended acts!
🌼 Recommended acts are the vitamins of obligatory acts; they increase a person’s desire and willingness to do good.
🌼 Through ornate speech in poetry, they speak so artfully that they enchant the listener and feed them lies dressed up as truth, leading them into the pit of sin.