The Sons of Shayṭān

Shayṭān then went on: Do you know, O Muḥammad, that I have a son named Atam? His task is to urinate into the ear of anyone who goes to sleep without having performed the night prayer, so that its warmth keeps that person asleep; without it, no one could ever go to bed with the ʿIshāʾ prayer left undone.

There is the account of a young man, then seventeen years old, raised in a devout family, who had never missed a single prayer, and who one night lay on his bed before ʿIshāʾ without yet having gone to sleep. His mother, a woman of insight, came and saw Shayṭān sitting upon him — that is, saw him grown a little heedless, at risk of missing that prayer altogether — and stood over him as he lay there feigning sleep, pretending not to notice her, and said: O Lord of the Worlds, I do not wish a disbelieving child to remain in this house; take his life before morning, if he does not perform his prayer. Ameen, she said, and went away. He got up at once and went to find her — mother, what are we to do about our children? — but she answered gently: do not wake him, he is tired, he has had a hard day at school, he plays football; Allah is Forgiving and Merciful, He will forgive the child. There is a wry aside that goes with this account: such a "child," found still living at home with his parents at twenty-eight, unmarried, treated still as a boy at thirty years old — that, too, is named among the signs of the Last Hour.

This, then, is Atam's particular office among Shayṭān's children: to lay such a weight upon a person's shoulders that sleep feels overwhelming, irresistible — just five minutes, he suggests, only five minutes lying down — and within those five minutes the person is already gone, waking only when Fajr has arrived. But rise at once, in a fresh state of ablution, and sleep of that kind cannot take hold; it is Atam's whole labour undone.

Then, he said, I have a son named Mutaqadeen — one who prays for payment. His task is to make known, and to win praise for, the prayers and good deeds a person has done in secret for Allah's sake. Allah has promised a hundredfold reward for a good deed done secretly and sincerely; once it becomes known and receives the praise of other people, ninety-nine parts of that promised reward are withheld, and only the one part remains.

There is the exchange this produces: a man comes to the mosque and says, by the way, last night was beautiful and cold, and my room was warm, and I got up for tahajjud — twenty rakʿahs of it, praise be to Allah. Why, comes the natural question, are you telling me this? In the afternoon another is seen praying supererogatory prayers, and, once the greeting is given, adds that he is fasting as well — yes, indeed, fasting too. This is what is called summʿah, doing something for the ear of other people: riyāʾ and summʿah are exactly where Mutaqadeen goes to work. A good deed done in secret, known only between a person and Allah, is picked at by this son of Shayṭān again and again, until it is finally disclosed to someone else — and the moment it is disclosed, his work is done, because the very reason for disclosing a good deed is to be praised, to be seen as a good person in the eyes of others; whatever sincerity the intention carried at first is gone the moment it is spoken aloud. The tongue must be trained to keep such things secret.

Then, he said, I have a son named Qahail, whose task is to place a film — a qahal — over the eyes of those sitting before people of knowledge and the learned. Touched by this devil, such a person's eyes begin to close in the very presence of a lecture or a sermon, in the Friday khuṭbah itself, while the one teaching speaks with real feeling of the verses of Allah and the sayings of the Messenger of Allah. Those affected lean against the wall like so many gravestones — were the veil lifted from a person's eyes, this Qahal itself could be seen, urging on: a little more, a little more, sleep, sleep. There is the account of a teacher who, unable to bear the sight, called out four times for these gravestones to be removed from his presence, saying that even five people who wished to benefit would be enough, and that the rest should be left to their rest — these, he said, are the poor victims of Qahal, kept by him from hearing, or benefiting from, the words of Allah delivered through such scholars.