Page 31 - Why Do You Deceive Yourself ?

Being Sincerely Religious without Deceiving Yourself 29
Satan cannot influence Allah's sincere servants because they never for-
get that he will try to divert them from the true path, and so guard
themselves carefully against him.
Satan's evil cunning can show itself anywhere. As a result of his
wiles, a person may fall into error on any matter he encounters in his
everyday life whether he is aware of this or not, and if he is not a sin-
cere believer this influence can take over his entire life so that the out-
come is that it drives him straight to Hell. That is exactly Satan's pur-
pose. Satan wants people to rebel against Allah and suffer eternal tor-

ment. He never stops chasing them until they enter the Fire. The pur-
pose of all his traps, whether big or small, of his watching and waiting
for an opportunity, is to draw people to Hell with himself. In one
verse, Allah warns people against the enmity of Satan:
Satan is your enemy so treat him as an enemy. He summons
his party so they will be among the people of the searing
blaze. (Surah Fatir: 6)
Obviously in this verse Allah informs us about a great danger.
From the dawn of humanity to the present, Satan has achieved his pur-
pose with countless people who do not believe in Allah. These verses
of the Qur'an tell us so:
Iblis was correct in his assessment of them and they followed
him, except for a group of the believers. He had no authority
over them except to enable Us to know those who believe in

the Hereafter from those who are in doubt about it. Your Lord
is the Preserver of all things. (Surah Saba': 20-21)
However, let us note right away that Allah has also told us that
Satan's power of deception is very weak (Surat an-Nisa': 76). As we can
see from the above verse, it is out of the question for Satan to compel
people. He does not have the power to do so. Satan merely speaks to