Page 57 - Faith: The Way to Happiness

Satan, the Voice of Misery

Satan Inspires Hopelessness and Helplessness
As we pointed out in the previous section, Satan tries to use
every opportunity as best he can to divert people from the way of
Allah, to distance them from religion, to have them engage in worth-
less pursuits and prevent them from thinking about Allah and the
Hereafter. One of the situations in which Satan finds an opportunity
is the moment when a person sinks into hopelessness or pessimism.
During his life a person is faced with a large number of events,
some which seem positive, some negative, and he does not know
w h e re, when or under what conditions he will be faced with these
events. At any time he may contract a fatal disease, lose all his prop-
erty due to a natural disaster, be thrown out of work, be forced to
live on a restricted income for a long period or encounter other such
major or minor events which are regarded as negative. People who
do not consider that the world has been created as a test and do not
believe that Allah has created everything on the basis of His wisdom
become depressed when faced with such occurrences and lose hope.
This arises from their lack of trust in Allah.
In fact nothing a person encounters in life is accidental, empty
or meaningless. As Allah tells us in the verse, "... And no fruit
emerges from its husk, nor does any female get pregnant or give
birth, without His knowledge..." (Surah Fussilat: 47) Everything
that happens takes place with His knowledge, at His wish and
under His control. Nothing, therefore, is accidental or meaningless.
On the contrary, everything contains meaning and divine wisdom.
If, instead of seeing this truth, a person evaluates events thro u g h
such superstitious concepts as "blind chance" or "coincidence," this
will create in him discontent, worry and hopelessness. Of course,
this is a situation which makes Satan's task easier because thro u g h
the misgivings he causes people who live their lives unaware of this

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