Devils of Purification and Prayer

In a further hadith the Messenger of Allah names yet another devil, one whose task is to trouble a person during ablution: his name is Walhān. His work is seen regularly enough: how long, after all, should a shower take — ten minutes, fifteen, even twenty at the outside, even after falling into a sewer? A person who spends an hour and a half under the shower, two or three times a day, might be thought to be suffering some compulsion, some psychological disorder — and it can be exactly that. Or a person begins his ablution straight after Ẓuhr and is still at it as the imam is about to call the takbīr for ʿAṣr, going back over each part — is this part wet, is that part dry, did I wash the right foot, did I wash the left — while Shayṭān sits by, so to speak, with a toothpick in his mouth, murmuring: the left foot, round the corner there, behind the ear — this is his favourite hour. This devil, Walhān, is difficult to be rid of; the Messenger of Allah instructs that refuge be sought in Allah from his evil, and that this be repeated constantly, for without it a person is caught in an endless loop, near impossible to break free of — and once broken, care must be taken not to fall back into it.

There is, besides, a devil at work after the ablution itself is finished, giving the impression that wind has been passed and that the ablution must be performed all over again — the same loop repeated. However many times this happens — I can feel it, I have passed wind — the Messenger of Allah's instruction is plain: unless the sound or the smell of it is unmistakable, it is to be disregarded, and prayer proceeds; this alone breaks the circuit, for otherwise the loop continues without end.

In a different hadith the Prophet instructs that the rows in prayer be kept straight, shoulder to shoulder, with no gap left between worshippers, so that Shayṭān cannot come in between them during the prayer. ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ once asked how Shayṭān could come between himself and his prayer and his recitation of the Qur'an — how, reciting the Qur'an itself, could such a devil intrude? The Messenger of Allah told him that this particular devil is named Hunzab;^*** the moment his presence is felt in prayer, constantly taking things away, refuge is to be sought in Allah at once — saying aʿūdhu billāhi min ash-shayṭāni r-rajīm — and blowing three times to the right side, never the left. That companion reported that, having followed this instruction, Allah removed Hunzab from him.