Page 57 - The importance of conscience in the Qur'an

The Negative Powers Against Conscience 55

The shaytan
For many people, the shaytan is a mythical notion. They do
not realise the effect he has on people, and the role he plays in
daily life. In this book, there is not sufficient time to do more
than touch upon some qualities of the shaytan and the negative
power he exerts against conscience. Even so, it should be
sufficient to help one realise that the shaytan is not an imaginary
being, but a negative power who watches man minutely and
tries to drag him to error.
The shaytan disobeyed Allah and did not prostrate to
Prophet Adam. Because of his jealousy and arrogance, he
decided to lead human beings, whom he considered to be
inferior to him, astray from Allah's way. In the Qur'an, it is
mentioned that the shaytan gives false desires to the hearts,
tries to make people doubt the existence of Allah and the
hereafter, and makes the life of this world seem attractive to
people. In fact, the shaytan is the representation of the negative
powers that are present in the self. While a man's conscience
always directs him to the right, the shaytan always directs him
to the wrong.
However, the shaytan does not do this self-evidently. He
has various methods that he uses surreptitiously. For instance,
he may whisper to someone: 'You are a good person; you say
you are a Muslim; if paradise exists, you will go there'. Perhaps
this person neither practises regular prayers, nor the other
commands of Allah, but the shaytan makes him feel confident
that saying 'I'm a Muslim' is sufficient. He does not make him
deny the existence of the hereafter outright, but he makes him
lead a life near to disbelief under the name of Islam. What is
more important is that the person, unaware that this is a
deliberate plan devised by the shaytan to drag him into hell,