Guarding Against Him

How, then, is a person to protect himself from Shayṭān's attack? Beneficial knowledge is needed, ʿilm nāfiʿ. Dhikrullāh is always needed — a daily wird — the heart occupied, the tongue always moist, with remembrance of Allah. Refuge must be sought in Allah through Aʿūdhu billāhi min ash-shayṭāni r-rajīm; and the mujāhadah and discipline already discussed are needed too. Allah says in the Qur'an^***:

What is to be done during such an attack, when Shayṭān is truly pressing a person to do something bad? Allah gives the command Himself: if a whisper, a waswasah, from the devil should reach the heart, refuge should be sought at once in Allah, saying Aʿūdhu billāhi min ash-shayṭāni r-rajīm; Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing, and knows exactly what a person is undergoing. Seeking refuge in this way brings real help.

There is an account of Shayṭān, once cast into Jahannam, delivering a kind of sermon there. Some, in the Western imagination, picture him as the master of hell — but he burns there like everyone else. An objection is sometimes raised: he is made of fire himself, so how can fire burn him? The answer is that the fire of Jahannam burns everything that enters it; it is not the fire known in this world. When those in the fire go to seize him, blaming him — "because of you we are here" — he answers them, as given in Sūrat Ibrāhīm, verse twenty-two:

Allah promised you a true promise, he tells them, and I too made you a promise, and failed you in it. I had no authority over you at all, except that I called you, and you answered my call — so do not blame me; blame yourselves. I cannot help you, nor can you help me. I reject, now, your having associated me with Allah before. For the wrongdoers there is a painful punishment. Every soul in Jahannam, it is said, will hear every word of this: do not blame me, he tells them, blame yourselves; you worshipped me and followed my way, but I have nothing to do with what has become of you now — it is your own foolishness.