“Why won’t she answer my call!”
“He read my message, but why isn’t he replying?”
“What did my friend mean by that comment?”
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Brothers and sisters, have you ever encountered these thoughts? Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said that one of the things that shaytan will never give up is spreading hatred and enmity among us. [Sahih At-Tirmidhi 1937]. So shaytan will whisper to us every explanation that causes us to have mistrust and bad assumptions about others.
But, alhamdulillah, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has given us two powerful tools to combat these evil whispers, and bring us peace of mind.
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1. The first tool is for our own benefit: Whenever we have these negative thoughts and baseless assumptions about others, we need to realize that these thoughts are from shaytan. So we seek Allah’s refuge from the shaytan, by saying: a’udzoo billahi min ash-shaytan (i.e. I seek refuge with Allah from the shaytan).
🔵 Allah says in the Qur’an: “And if an evil whisper from Shaytan tries to turn you away, then seek refuge in Allah. Verily, He is the All-Hearer, the All-Knower.” [Surah Fussilat 41 : 36]
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2. The second tool is for us to benefit others: We need to watch what we say and do, so that we don’t make other people an easy target for shaytan to whisper bad assumptions about us!
🔵 Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala says: “Tell My (servants) to say the best of speech. The shaytan tries to ruin relationships (taking things out of context). The shaytan is a clear enemy to humanity.” [Surah Al-Isra 17 : 53]
Allah did not tell us to just say any good word, but the best! So if we have a list of options of what to say to someone, then choose the best option. Spend a little more time typing our emails, or messages so that we can craft the best responds. This is because shaytan tries to plant seeds of hatred and conflicts, so that people take things out of context, and make a big deal out of small things.
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So brothers and sisters, seek Allah’s refuge, and choose the best words, so that in shaa Allah, it will become very difficult for shaytan to put his trap on us and others. May Allah make it easy for us to do the above two things, protect and bless our relationships, ameen.
