What to Do when You see Yourself acting on Shaitan's Desires

"And if an evil whisper comes to you from Shaitan (Satan) then seek refuge with Allah. Verily, He is All-Hearer, All-Knower. * Verily, those who are Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:2), when an evil thought comes to them from Shaitan (Satan), they remember (Allah), and (indeed) they then see (aright)." (Surah Al-A'raf, 7:200, 201)

In order to stop somebody from controlling your life you must understand how the person operates. I will tell you this in detail when I take you 'inside Shaitan's head' (if he has one) later on in the book, but right now I would like to give you a behind the scenes view of Shaitan's operation.

Shaitan knows that he can't make a Muslim commit major sins at will, so he starts by telling· us to commit smaller sins, until our resistance to these sins drops. Then he tells us to commit a bigger sin, which in fact looks like a small sin at the time, Shaitan continues this until we start committing major sins.

Shaitan works by causing us to doubt our beliefs and makes us either too negligent or too over-zealous about our religion, depending on what's easier for him. If you are or have been experiencing any of the following thoughts, then Shaitan has made good headway in your body and you have begun to act on his desires:

• I'll start praying in the mosque 5 times a day after I finish my exams - or even worse - after I come back from my summer vacation.

• I can afford to miss Fajr in the mosque today, (I went yesterday).

• I'll pray right after this TV program finishes. (You just choose a bunch of actors over God).

• This isn't a lie/ it won't hurt anyone/ it's only a joke/ I'll just do it this one time only.

Again I could have gone on but I think you get the point by now. So now if you find yourself as a pawn in Shaitan's game, what are you to do? Well, the answer to that question is in the Verses quoted before:

"And if an evil whisper comes to you from Shaitan (Satan) then seek refuge with Allah..." (Surah Al-A'raf, 7:200)

When you get that feeling, that tinge, that push from Shaitan telling you to do something wrong that seems fun or easy at the time but deep inside you know it's wrong for you to do, the first thing you must do is go straight to the part of the house where you keep the Qur’an, or go to a mosque, get hold of a copy of the Qur’an and start reciting the Qur’an as much as you can until you are able to exert some sort of control over the desires created by Shaitan.

One way in which you can seek refuge with Allah from Shaitan is by reciting the last two chapters of the Noble Qur'an - namely Surah Al-Falaq and Surah An-Nas.

Shaitan works in mysterious ways and so to combat him we must do what Allah says in plenty of places in the Qur'an, and that it is to seek refuge with Allah by remembering Him, i.e., by doing Dhikr of Allah, and one of the best ways of doing Dhikr is by reading the Qur'an and praying and fasting voluntarily.