Nouman Ali Khan – How The Devil Attacks From The Left

Nouman Ali Khan

Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan elaborates on how Satan attacks us from the left side.

The basic idea that is postulated by the scholars is that right is associated with the good and left is for that which is bad which means it makes us lazy, delaying doing good things, etc. What keeps us connected to Allah is the acts of worship, remembrance of Allah, our desire to seek forgiveness from Allah for our sins.

Shaytan attacks from the left by:

  • Removing your motivation to engage in beneficial acts by slowing your ability to do good things. This way he has room to fill up your heart with bad things. 
  • Eliminating the remembrance of Allah from your life so that you are not alarmed in Haram situations and to then fill your heart with despair. 
  • By beautifying sins for you and pulling you towards his direction (the left). Ultimately deviating you from the path of Allah. 
  • To convince us that you have no respect, that you are filthy and invaluable in the eyes of Allah.
  • Greed and  Wanting more than just the blessings of Allah. 
  • Once he gets you evolved in sin, he’ll keep you thereby convincing you that you need it.

 

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AI: Summary ©

The concept of "the" in Arabic culture is used for things like the ability to do things, the ability to do things, and the ability to do things. The use of "has been in the heart of Islam" to convince people to stay away from evil things is discussed, along with the importance of guidance and strong message of Islam in protecting against temptation and negative comments. The segment also touches on the use of "has been in the heart of Islam" to convince people to stay away from evil things and the importance of guidance and strong message of Islam in protecting against temptation and negative comments.

AI: Summary ©

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			This clip is dedicated to the fourth direction by which the Chapin tries to attack us according to
His promise you will absolutely come in, he said I will absolutely come at them, I will absolutely
attack them from right in front of them from behind them from the right and from their left. And
today we speak about what he's going to do when he attacks us from the left. The Arabic word for
that is the word Shama, which comes from the Arabic verb Shama, that's an interesting verb of the
Arabic language, because it actually means two things. Basically, from that word, you get the
meaning of inclusion, like shaman or mush Tamil, the idea of including something or the left side,
		
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			actually, the word shaman is not used. For the left side, it's used for the left hand. And a lot of
words in Arabic that come from this are related to things that get covered up like a bag, or
actually, they use Shambhala, for some hunters who used to get covered up in the dirt, so the animal
doesn't see them. So they're camouflaged. So the idea of covering something and the idea of
including something in its entirety, immersing something is that word. So what does that have to do
with the left? Well, the basic idea that's been been been postulated by some is that bait, you know,
in Arabic, in Arabic culture, like in many cultures, your basic hand is your right hand. So most of
		
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			the tasks you do normally, for most people, or for many people is the right hand. And culturally,
you know, you get work done with it, you write with it, you do whatever task, you carry things with
it. But if you have so much to carry that your right hand is not enough, the left hand the
remainder, so that you can include everything is carried over by the left hand. So that's kind of
the connection between those two ideas of this original word. But it's important to note that it's
not just in Arabic culture that the right is associated with something good. And the left is
associated with something not so good. It's actually part of many cultures and many languages. For
		
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			example, even in the Latin language, the right hand is called Dexter. And you know, English is a
derivative of Latin. So in English dexterity, for example, is good skill, you know, proficiency in
something is to have dexterity in something. And the left hand in Latin is sinister. Of course, the
same word sinister, in English is something evil or something bad. So it's not just something
associated in the Arabic language. But in many cultures, the right and the left have to do with good
versus evil, you know, something appreciated versus something not so good. Now, what I want to tie
this to what does it mean that Chetan comes to us from the left side, there are some obvious
		
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			meanings and I want to go through, you know, some of them with you. The first of them has to take me
back to what I talked about in the series of qobuz. About chatime coming from the right, so one
previous review, or something I didn't actually mention, that will tie to today's code bar. And that
is when chetana taxes from the right, one of its meanings is that shavon oferteo. Home, and it has
said that he slows, meaning he promises I will slow them down, or take their motivation away from
doing good deeds. So it's not just that he wants you to do something bad, he'll actually take your
motivation away, or try to make you lazy, or try to make you not so inclined towards doing good
		
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			things. So you know, the idea of getting lazy to get up to pray, for example, like you're just
you're up, it's your time, you know, you have to get up and you tell yourself five minutes, two
minutes, okay, okay, okay, I noticed the alarm, I'm going to count to 30. And by the time you count
to 10, he's already put you to sleep again. Right. So the idea of just delaying or taking your time
with doing good things, or, you know, you're in conversation tells me you know, I should be, I
really should be reciting more Quran. I know, I know, I got to do it, I know, I got to do it, you
tell yourself, I got to do it, but you don't do it. And that's set on not necessarily making you do
		
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			evil things. But slowing your ability to do good things down, taking that motivation away from you
distracting you with other things. And of course, you the human mind, and our heart is not an empty
vessel, it's going to be filled with something. So if you don't fill it with good deeds, now
shaitaan has the opportunity to fill it up with bad deeds, you see. So it's, it's actually that's
why we have to keep on doing good things is because if you leave that mind empty that this vessel
empty, and you leave that time empty, it's going to get filled up with something that now that
Shetlands, taking the good out of it, he's gonna fill it up with some bad for you. Right? So that's
		
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			how he's going to influence the other, you know, but by contrast, what this also means is when
someone starts slows down, doing good deeds, the thing about ibadah in particular worship and there
are many good deeds you don't like helping people or charity and all of that. But let's particularly
talk about what keeps our heart connected to allies acts of worship, recitation of Quran prayer.
These are things that connect us to a lion make us remember Allah very directly. These are spiritual
necessities. Just like when you know every time I have to breathe in and breathe out every few
hours, I need some water. My body needs it just like that our soul needs our heart needs the
		
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			remembrance of Allah. So if shadowline slows down our active remembrance of Allah
		
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			takes time out of our life little by little by little, the more he takes it away. Just like when you
know, when you have a plant and you don't feed the plant, it gets dry, and it starts dying away. The
same way, when you don't have time to do remembrance of Allah, the heart starts getting harder, your
heart starts getting harder, and the heart starts getting weaker, it starts withering away. And what
does that mean? That actually means that now your desire to ask Allah for forgiveness, your desire
to make Toba to Allah, your alarm when something wrong happens, the heart gets alerted, this
shouldn't I shouldn't be looking at this, I shouldn't be saying this, I shouldn't be doing this.
		
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			There's an automatic alarm. If that alarm, the batteries are good. And it's well fed, then it's
going to go off. But when that alarm gets weaker, then it doesn't go off. So shut on by doing so
from the left. Now evil things are coming. evil things are happening. And you can you should be able
to tell this is wrong, I shouldn't be doing it. But because he's removed Vicar from your life. Now
those alarms are not going off. Now that you know you don't, it doesn't even it doesn't even alert
you that this is something bad. And when that starts happening, then despair happens. Well, I don't
even feel bad anymore. I'm pretty hopeless. The next thing is because his name is Iblees from
		
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			Abdullah, which also means to be hopeless. Right? In the Arabic sense, it also means to be hopeless.
He makes you and me hopeless. Well, you know, when I pray, I don't really feel anything. Because the
hardest, so hard, right? If you if you stay away from the remembrance of Allah for a long time, or
if you're only making the prayer just to go through the motions, and then get back to other things.
Your heart's not in it, then you start telling yourself even when I do pray, I don't feel anything.
So what's even the point? Why am I even praying, the thing is, if a plant or a tree has become weak,
right, and you want it to be healthy again, then you put some water on it. But as soon as you put
		
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			water, you don't see fruits popping out. You got to keep putting water little by little by little,
and get and it rejuvenates. It's not going to happen immediately. So if you've been out of this
connection with Allah, and you're trying to rebuild that you have to be patient with yourself. But
what a Shetland want, the shaitaan wants to Agila, and he puts human beings, you know, he wants them
to rush into things. And if they don't see results right away, he wants them to give up. So as
you're trying, you're struggling to get better and closer and your heart You're trying to reconnect
your heart to Allah, even though that's a process, that's not gonna happen overnight. It's not gonna
		
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			happen in one prayer or two prayers, it's gonna take some time and commitment. If you don't see
immediate progress, he just wants you to give up. What's the point anyway, I feel nothing. So that's
the first way that he comes at us from the left, meaning stay on the left don't even turn towards
the right, then the second that's been mentioned by many scholars is COVID yahama say
		
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			that he you know, there are things that are known evil, there are things that are you just know that
they're evil, human nature knows that certain things are wrong. And he will make you more and more
inclined towards them. And scholars classically divided, you know, shubo heart and say art and
Shahada a little bit differently. And I'll explain some of that to you. There are evil things that
we do, that we're tempted to because we feel like it will give us something, right, it'll bring us
some kind of benefit. Maybe it gives somebody pleasure, maybe it gives somebody money, maybe give
somebody recognition, you feel good in some way if you do certain evil things. Right. So that's one
		
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			kind of evil, where for example, food is a necessity from Allah. That's that and that's why we are
supposed to be able to eat food that service Allah has given us but Chetan will want us to say, hey,
if you really want to feel good, that food that's Haram, that's, that's the one you got to try.
Right? He wants you to cross that line. So he'll take what we actually need, and we think we're
gonna feel good with it. Relationships are supposed to be through marriage, but he'll say no, try
something outside of it. Try something outside of it will give you pleasure, right? So that that's
one kind of sin that he beautifies and he keeps pushing on to you. And he keeps pulling at you.
		
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			Meaning he wants to beautify evil deeds to the point where you're like, I can't even help myself.
Yeah, I do it. But what do you want me to do? It makes me feel good. You know, but there's another
kind of sin. And the other kind of sin is when you're doing something so hideous, and so ugly, and
it doesn't even give you any pleasure. It doesn't even feel good. Like when you're backbiting when
you're talking about somebody you get you get nothing. You get nothing from it, but you still do it
anyway. Oh, when you're hurting somebody with your words, you don't benefit in any way. When you
insult someone, when you humiliate someone, when you degrade someone, you get nothing out of it. Or
		
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			when you lose your temper temper or you hit someone or whatever else. When you whenever you engage
in any kind of wrong towards another human being. It may not even be that you get something out of
it. But he pulls you towards the left meaning he makes you do things that you don't even see they
even end up harming you in this life. Not even in the next
		
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			You know, and he'll keep pulling you in that direction making you addicted to those kinds of things
may Allah protect us. Now the idea of Shema really interesting in Arabic culture I'll share some
some expressions old Arab sayings with you geography me Nick. We're not a jellyfish Malik Gianni
Philomena macadam demeanor and Aquila, serene the word the word right and left was also used for
when someone is close to you. And you say this person is by my right. And when you want to keep
someone far away from you, like I'd rather not deal with that guy, send them to voicemail. Block the
phone number that's a person on the left. So a guy says to his friend who's not talking to him
		
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			anymore Hey man, keep me on your right why you got to put me on the left. That's the expression How
are you putting me on the left meaning Why are you abandoning me? Why are you distancing yourself
from me? The idea of shaitaan coming from the left is also to convince you that you have now been
distanced from Allah, that you are in fact distanced. So there's no point keep you farther away. And
calling you from the left means anything that might bring you closer to Allah, he'll prevent you
from and anything that can take you further away. He'll keep calling you when you need to shaytani
and tamiu Malan azima shaitan wants that you incline deviate Far, far, far and far away until the
		
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			Luba land and Merida that you become way out there in your misguidance so that even if you think
about turning back You're so miles away from the right course that you've just feel like I there's
no way I'm going to make it all the way back there. Now I'm too far gone. I'm too far out this way.
So this idea of distancing is captured inside Shema idiom. The other interesting meaning well who
are in the novel yameen Avi manzi Latin Hassan they say in Arabic, this person is right by my right,
which means I have a lot of respect for them. I hold them in high respect high position. And then
they say in Arabic way either Caboose admin Zilla to who and during the Mishima that when somebody
		
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			is respect is gone, then they say you are on my left side. Now, what that means is I no longer have
any respect for you. Siobhan wants to convince his victims that they they have no respect. Allah
doesn't regard them. Allah doesn't respect them. Nobody respects them, they shouldn't even respect
themselves their filth. Well, if I'm filth anyway, might as well do whatever I want. Nobody cares
about me anyway, I have no value anyway. associaton wants you to feel devalued about yourself, and
have no value for yourself and therefore pull, you know, pull you in that direction. Now, I want to
share with you some things. In addition to this, this this idea of being pulled from the left and
		
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			beautifying evil deeds. One of you know, I told you in the beginning, that chamilia also means
inclusion or including everything. It also means, you know, one of the possible meanings is you
know, when we hold something from the right.
		
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			The idea is you're doing things the right way, like for example earning money, there's a right way
to earn money, right. And everybody knows there's wrong ways to earn money too. But if you want more
than that, you want everything and what you have in your right hand isn't enough. You want to get
your left hand involved and grab more, isn't it? So it could also be an implication that here a lie
is telling us the shaitaan will come at you with what you have in your hand is not enough. What you
got from the right way is not enough. He wants you to get more and get everything and he's gonna use
your greed. Check out a Shantanu yo yo como Fokker, welcome bill fascia shaitaan promises you
		
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			bankrupt bankruptcy, and commands you to do shameless things, lewd things to indecent things. So the
idea of human greed is captured inside, when shaitaan will pull us from the from the left, you know,
this is why Allah says woman, you see, he would like a homophone, whoever has been protected from
the greed that lives inside themselves, they're the ultimately successful greed is a really scary
thing. Greed is a very powerful pole from shaitan. To the left, look at all the trees, I talked
about this so many times before, look at all the trees available in heaven. And the shaitaan uses
the greed of the human being to column to that one tree is not supposed to go near that one tree,
		
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			you know, all the trade is available, but he The human being is pulled towards the neighbor, you
know, you have to have a polynomial must mass you see in the Quran, when greed comes up, shaitaan
comes up, you know. So this idea of pulling to the left is also associated with with greed. Now,
I've given you a little bit of an overview of these four directions. And these you know, and this
one last one that I didn't emphasize, as far as the left is concerned, is that shaitaan once he gets
somebody involved in sin, and wrongdoing, and he immerses them in it, they become completely drowned
in that sin. He wants to keep them there. And he wants to make them think that this is the only way
		
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			they can ever be I can't help myself. This is just what I do. This is just how I cope. And he wants
to keep them far, far into it. And so you have to identify yourself, what is that evil, that you've
justified to yourself? What is that sin? That's allowing you
		
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			They just say to yourself, it's okay, if I do that. That's okay, I do some other good things, it's
fine. You know, and you justify that to yourself, stay away from that as much as possible. What I
wanted to include in this whole bar, a couple of other quick observations, my series on Shabbat is
not done, we have a couple of more to go other than these directions. What comes at the end of these
if I wanted to really pay attention to how Allah deals with this conversation, because remember,
this is a conversation between the devil and Allah himself. He's telling a lot what he's gonna do to
us. That's what this conversation is, right? So part of that is the question that arises, that he
		
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			does, he only attacks us from four directions, but not from above, and not from below. Like there's
four directions mentioned. But really, in a sense, it's not three dimensional, right? It's just, you
know, front behind, and right and left, but there's no mention of above and below. And there's a
couple of observations that were that can be made about that. One of the observations can be that
the two things that you know, what you get on calls to is falsehood. shaitaan calls to falsehood,
and the opposite of falsehood is truth. And there are two truths that will never change the truth
that comes from a lies revelation, it comes from above, right, it comes, that's truth from Allah.
		
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			And that is certainty, it's clean. And the other truth is death, which you look down what is there
the ground that you and I will go into, right, and those two things are absolute certainty. And if
your focus is on what is above, and what is below, and you'll be fine, then ventured on can attack
from whatever size you want, but you're protected from above and below, he can't come from those two
sides. Another way of looking at it is that the slave of Allah turns upwards into our
		
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			and turns downwards in such that those two acts of humility into I'll be recognized were not
powerful. And I'll be recognized were the ones in need in the army recognize that we are dependent
on Allah, and in such that we recognize that we are not going to be like shavon, who refuse to do
such that we go down in such that so those two directions to our towards the above, and such that
towards the below, or is the one shaitaan cannot touch and such that isn't just to put your head on
the ground, such that it's to humble yourself and humble myself to the commandment of Allah.
Remember that the idea of him refusing to do such that was not just to put the head on the ground.
		
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			The idea was, Allah told me to do something, I don't want to do it. That's refusal to do such that.
And if we can really internalize these two things, then those other four directions of attack, we're
going to remain secure from I wanted to read something very beautiful. I found a commentary from
Shafiq Rahim Allah. He made this observation about this ayah and I wanted to read that off to you,
ma'am. In Sabah Han Illa t initiated shaytaan Amina Jihad Alba every morning the devil comes to me
from all four directions he says every morning the devil attacks me from all four directions. Men
venia do women have fever and Yemeni war and Shema he comes to me from the front he comes to me from
		
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			behind he comes to me from the right he comes to me from the left amania dia for the latter half he
comes to me from the front and says Don't be afraid whatever it is do it just you know cuz impulse
just whatever comes in front of you. Enjoy it, just do it. Why are you thinking about the future?
For inala for Rahim because Allah is forgiving. He comes to you from the friends are less forgiving,
just enjoy yourself. For Accra. We're in Nila cafaro, lemon turbo, velocity Han and I respond to him
by reciting a portion of the Quran from Surah Taha where Allah says I am absolutely someone who
forgives over and over again, but I forgive the one who makes Toba who repents, who truly believes
		
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			and acts in a good way, acts righteously. Meaning don't act however you want and say Allah forgives,
I said, Allah says I forgive for the one who acts correctly, not the one who acts however they want.
And then they say Allah forgives. So he responded. He Kashagan quoted the Quran to him right?
shaitaan said, Allah says I'm forgiving. And he says, No, you're using you're using a last words,
but you have a bad intent. So he understands what that actually means, and cites the correct one. So
then he says, What am I mean Henfield and he comes to me from behind for you how we fooling men who
could do different soccer. And it scares me that my children are going to become bankrupt when I
		
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			die. Now I don't have enough money for my kids, what are they going to do? How are they going to go
to school? Where are they going to live all this other stuff for mom and dad, but in the law, the
law here is and I recite there is not an animal on the earth, not a creature on the earth, except
Allah has taken responsibility to provide for it. So if Allah hasn't forgotten the ant and the bird
and the worm, and the fish, how is he going to forget my children? You know, and so I respond to him
with the word of Allah. Well, I mean, people, Yemeni and he says as far as my right is concerned,
for demon kybella
		
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			he comes to me and tries to praise me You did a good job today. Hey, that was that was some nice
prayer you perform Khurana
		
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			resignation to you this to me only the charity look at how much you help people look at how
wonderful you are, etc. He just wants you to have that lofty opinion about your good deeds. We
talked about that when he attacks from the right for our people to deal with 13. So I recite the the
end outcome is only going to favor those who are able to protect themselves, meaning protect
themselves from having a lofty opinion of themselves. May Allah protect us from that? Well, I mean,
people shrimali Dini mean criminal Shahada. And when it comes to me from the left, he tries to
attack me by get luring me into temptations. He luring me into temptations for a while he levina
		
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			home while being stoned. And I recite that between them and whatever they desire, desire, there's
going to be a barrier placed, a barrier is going to be placed. So he calls on the word of Allah to
protect him from temptation. This is actually at the end of the day, what I wanted to share with
you, you know, the only protection that we have from the devil is Allah. And Allah has actually our
connection to Allah is a rope. And that rope is called the Quran. Allah says well and didn't do any
human Shahada, that this this book. Other than that, you will find no other refuge, you'll find no
other security, no other protection. So I want you to understand something in your fight against
		
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			Chitwan, whether it's from the front, from the right from the back from the left, it doesn't matter
which direction he's attacking from. He will be successful. When you're not holding on to the rope
that comes from above. When you're not holding on to that when you're not reciting or, or connecting
with buzzwords thinking about what a lie saying to you and me, and how it applies to my life in your
life. This this message did not come to be sitting in a shelf somewhere. This revelation did not
come. So that we just decided and that's it. Are we here beautiful word beautiful sounds and that's
it. This revelation came to protect us. Allah actually gave us these words. As you know, Adam
		
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			alayhis salam was duped by the shaitaan. And when he was being sent to the earth, because now you've
You know, he was already up in Jannah. And this happened and now he's being sent to the earth when
he's being sent to the earth. What did Allah tell him? Well, how will you make sure that this will
never happen again, when you go to the earth for MIT and nakoma knew who didn't follow hopefully
		
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			from A to B.
		
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			What if and when to you, your children whenever guidance comes to you, whoever follows my guidance,
there'll be nothing to fear there's they're not going to be the ones that are said That's the
promise of Allah to Adam and a Salaam and his children. So guidance has come. Koran has come but and
we have to see it not as a sacred book. We don't have to we don't see it just as a book, you know,
for for, for blessings, you and you and I have to recognize this book came to protect us from our
ultimate enemy, there will be no other source of protection, like the word of a larger and larger
which will make us all secure and protected with his word. May Allah azzawajal make the parents hear
		
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			examples to their children and what it means to be bonded with a large book, a lot open our hearts
to study and learn and to internalize the meaning and message of the Quran deep into our hearts and
to bring it into our lives. And Allah as always, don't overlook our shortcomings and allow us to
continuously fight the temptations of shaytaan barakallahu li walakum Hakeem on a final year can be
IoT with him