How Shayṭān Attacks the Practising Muslim

But every Muslim has one, made of the jinn kind, bent on his destruction, constantly. A person is left entirely in the dark, clueless about his plans, while he schemes and works constantly — because practising one's religion and inviting others to Allah's path ruins those plans, which infuriates him and turns his rage that way. The more a person works in daʿwah, the more he is attacked; it is the practising Muslims who are attacked constantly. Others he leaves alone, counting them already his own, part of his circle. The more a person resists him by becoming a better Muslim, the greater his anger, opposition and scheming. What does he do — how does he attack? He does his best to spoil good deeds, al-ʿamal al-ṣāliḥ.

A prayer is performed, and he comes at once — what he does will be seen further on — and he pushes a person toward ruin and destruction, because that person, out of ignorance, believes himself quite safe from him and so has no fear of him. The greatest fool, the worst ignoramus, is the one who has no fear of Shayṭān and his tricks, because that enemy never sleeps. Yaḥyā ibn Muʿādh, one of the pious predecessors, said that Shayṭān sits at leisure waiting to destroy a person, while that person is occupied with the affairs of this world, with love of it. Shayṭān watches carefully, while he is not seen; a person may forget him, but he has never forgotten that person — he is always after him. He has, besides, a helper already inside a person, the nafs al-ammārah, a mate working from within. It is therefore fard to fight him and defeat him; there is no security from corruption and ruin otherwise.