LESSON OF THE DAY 680

Ayahs of the Day:
Some people dispute about God without knowledge: and they follow every defiant devil, of whom it is written that he will misguide anyone who puts him in charge, leading him to the torment of the blaze. [22: 3,4]

Hadith of the Day:
The most beloved practice in the sight of Allah is love for the sake of Allah and hatred for the sake of Allah. [Abu Dawud]

Wise Quote of the Day:
If we are not living for our Lord, relying on His guidance and help, and trusting in His wisdom, we will find it very difficult to negotiate our way through this world. [Imam Zaid Shakir]

Guidance of the Day:
If we know how the accursed Devil operates, it is possible to protect ourselves against his temptations. Generally speaking, there are seven ways the Devil leads people astray.

1. The main goal of the Devil is to prevent us from obeying our Lord. He wants to steal our faith. He will attempt to prevent us from praying, fasting, paying the poor-rate, from performing the pilgrimage, from doing good deeds. He presents the ego with attractive alternatives: wealth, fame, fun, ambition, attachment to the world and the worldly. But the heedful, wise, and faithful person can respond: "I am here in this world for a moment and I will be in the Hereafter for the eternity. I can only care for this world for the short time I will spend here, but I must work for the sake of the Hereafter where I will stay forever.

2. If the evil influence cannot prevent us from doing what Allah has ordered us to do, it tries to delay the good actions we intend. It tempts us to do what is pleasurable to our egos first. What Allah asks us to do, it prefers we do later. In this case, the devout, under the protection of their Lord, can respond: "My life is not in my hands. I do not know when the end will come. If I leave what I was ordered to do today until tomorrow, tomorrow may never come. Every moment of my life is for a purpose. Now is the time to do what is to be done now. And now is the only time." [The Path of Muhammad]

Food for Thought:
You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time. All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.