Nouman Ali Khan – How The Devil Pulls Us back

			So today's clip by inshallah, I will speak to you about the attacks of shaitaan that he described,
the first time we spoke about the attacks from the front. And today I'm going to talk to you about
he comes at us from behind, and how that is actually a very different kind of attack of the shutdown
if time allows. And I'll also delve into the attack from the right and then eventually from the
left. So what I want to speak to you about, as far as what's behind us, the most immediate imagery
of what's behind us is actually, our history. Whenever you go through a day you're not that's,
that's behind you that it'll never come back again. And so the most immediate and most powerful way
		

			to understand this attack of the shaitan is that he will use your past against you, he will use what
you've got, you've gone through in life, the experiences, you've had the things that you've, you
know, lived through, and he will manipulate those experiences. Because, you know, in some sense in
some psychological sense, also, we are the sum of our experiences, every experience you and I go
through affects us in some way. It impacts the way we think it impacts our emotions, maybe it even
affects our future decisions. You know, somebody who gets into a car accident, the way they drive
changes, you know, the same way when somebody gets you know, has a bad relationship with a friend,
		

			or something's falling out with a friend, the way they interact with them afterwards changes. So
experiences affect the way we make future decisions. Now, shaitaan, his job is to try to mess us up
in some way, get us off the straight track. So I'll highlight some of the ways he uses our past
against us. And we think these are thoughts that are happening inside of our own heads. While it's
actually the shape on and that's one of his great successes, is you think that these are your own
thoughts. But these are what's ours, these are just whispers of the devil, where he's trying to make
you fall back into something that you may have fallen into before. One of the ways that he does
		

			that, is that maybe, for example, you used to be a better person, maybe you used to be more, more
diligent with your prayers, maybe you were more observing of, you know what if Allah forbade
something, you stayed away from it, and if Allah said, this is allowed, and that's the only thing
you you were content with that, and you didn't fall into alleged disobedience and you were good, you
could look back and you say, you were good. And some people are like that, they look back and they
say, you know what, there was a time I was a much better person. I'm disappointed with myself. Now I
remember the time when I used to stand in prayer, and I used to cry, I don't know the last time I've
		

			shared it here. Or I used to feel so much connected to Allah, I used to just kind of do the code all
the time, I used to make the dog for coming into the house or leaving the house or going into the
restroom or coming out of it. Or I used to just have every excuse to remember Allah, I used to be
much kinder with my words, I now I use foul language, I use bad words against people, I lose my
temper, I speak about people I backed by, I've developed all these habits. I didn't used to be like
this, but I was a much better person. So there's one thing to compare yourself to somebody else. But
even when you compare yourself to yourself, some people were in a much better place before. And so
		

			shaitan says, Well, that's that part of you is dead, that's gone, that's never coming back. Listen,
that's over with this is who you are now. And he'll make you almost give up on yourself. While the
reality is that if you are capable, if Allah made you capable of living a certain way, and living by
a certain standard, and you upheld it, you were able to do it, then that actually means that you
will forever be capable. That's actually proved to yourself, it's one thing that you never
accomplished something, you will never able to accomplish something and you say, Well, I can't do
it. Well, maybe there's some truth to that maybe you haven't even tried or maybe it's you, I can't
		

			say for sure that you're capable. But you lived by something, you had certain capability, you were
doing better. Now, it's known that you have that you possess that in you, that faith in you that
strength in you. And so shaitan wants you to convince you that you no longer have that capability.
Because of whatever experiences you've gone through, or I've gone through now we will never go back
to who we were again, at least in our spiritual sense. We can't go back. Now understand something
emotionally, maybe you can't go back emotionally, when somebody's scarred, maybe they're changed
forever, and that's okay, that's life. That happens. Maybe if somebody you know, the loss of a child
		

			is not something easy to get over, for example. So there are kinds of trauma or kinds of
experiences, that maybe our entire lives will be chipping away at trying to heal, and we may never
get there. But shaytan uses that to mess you up not emotionally, but spiritually, to mess with your
connection with Allah. And to basically get you to say, Well, you know what, you've gone through
these experiences. So what's the point of prayer, you know, the prayers no longer count. And so
that's one kind of attack the shaitaan uses against you and me is to make you lament make you think
back with regret about better days that are never going to come back for you. The other thing
		

			shaitaan wants you to do in the you know from from behind, is you know, things that you bad
experiences that you had and you start questioning why did this happen to me? Right, you You and I
have gone through terrible actions.
		

			variances in life. these are these are, this is a part of life, luck created this life as a trial.
And every one of us has different kinds of trials. And some of those trials are not easy. And when
you think about what happened, it's very, it's very painful. And it can be paralyzing. It can be
something that you just you're overwhelmed, almost reliving the event that occurred in the past. And
one of the things that God wants us to, to keep you there to keep you thinking about the past to
keep you thinking about what happened, and keep questioning why did this happen to me? Why did this
happen to me? Why did this happen to me? Maybe I deserve it. Maybe I'm cursed. Maybe I'm no good.
		

			This is why I was angry at me. This is why he made this happened to me. And so you live in that
moment that happened some time ago, that a lot actually brought you out of budget and doesn't want
you to come out of it. He wants you to stay in that hopelessness, because he wants you to be
convinced like he is convinced that ally has no hope for him. Or that he's hopeless case. There's no
turning back for him or that ally hates him even. So people will develop you and I might develop
because we're thinking about that event all the time, not just anger towards people who hurt us, but
even towards a lot like why did he let this happen to me? Why did he do this to me? I didn't deserve
		

			it. And so when you when you think about the kinds of experiences that prophets went through a
Masato Salaam, you will appreciate something, a lot that the prophets Allah talks about in the
Quran, are in so many cases, people that had such difficult lives, that such you know, even before
they became prophets, they had extremely, extremely difficult lives. Think about the life of our own
messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam whose parents died in childhood, right, who goes through, you
know, one, one care to another care to another care and everybody, every time he has somebody that
is basically taking care of him, they pass away, and he's passed on to someone else, and he's passed
		

			on to someone else? How difficult is that for a child? How difficult is for is it for a parent to
lose their child, our messenger experience losing children sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and the
thought to come Why did I deserve that that should happen to me? or Why did my child deserve to die
like this. And every time you see somebody else's child healthy and running around, it reminds you
of the child that you don't have anymore, that sort of thing. So these are the kinds of pains a lot
of put even profits through AlLahi, Masato Salaam, the reason I'm saying that is for you and me to
know that these pains that we experienced in life are not a proof that Allah has cursed you, or
		

			Alize angry at you, or you're going through bad experiences, because Allah is mad at you. And unless
punishing you for something that's not the case. Some of the best people that ever lived had very
difficult lives, had very hard times. And it's not because of lead doesn't love them. So this life
was made with trials with difficulties that we have to learn to navigate. shaitaan wants us to
believe everything that happens to us, somehow figure out a way to blame Allah for it figured out a
way to blame a lot. Why? Because that's what he did for me my awakening, he blamed Allah when he
refused to do samsa. And he was cast out, he blamed Allah immediately. That's where he wants you to
		

			get to. And so he uses that past bad experience, that painful experience to try to pull you away
from Allah. Also, another way he uses your past is that he will, you know, maybe some of us we lived
a life of sin before, maybe you had friends or you know, your relationships, that were leading you
down a road of sin, that you kept falling in and falling in and falling in. And you figured out a
way to make Toba to Allah and you cut off those friendships, and you cut off those relationships,
whether those people are, you know, they their judgment is with Allah, but you for yourself, you
decided that those people may not be evil, but I know that when I'm in their company, or when I'm
		

			around, then I fall into evil. So I'm going to try to protect myself and I'm going to pull away as
much as I can, and try to fix myself with Allah, you will know in your personal life, who those
people are. And maybe you have people like that in your life that were pulling you into sin, whether
they realize that themselves or not. And maybe it's not even their fault. Maybe it's your own
weakness. But since you recognize that you say, you know what, every time I've tried, I fallen back
into sin, I'm going to discontinue some of these relationships, not because I hate these people,
because I'm better than them. Not because, you know, I want them to suffer. But because I want to
		

			save myself. I want to pull myself away. And when you pull yourself away, shaitaan will come and
say, Hey, don't you miss the old friendship? And I missed those guys. You're gonna miss her man.
You're gonna miss this, you're gonna miss that and you want He wants you to pull back, go back, go
back, go back. The same way. Some people left sin, literally sin. They left drinking, they left
drugs. You know, they left adultery. They left fornication, they left evil deeds. They walked away
from them. They changed. But sometimes the devil comes and triggers you and says, hey, you're going
through a hard time. Just one time. Just go back. Not forever. But come on. It's different. It's a
		

			hard you had a hard week. It's been a tough month. You've gone through a lot. Just go back just a
little bit. And you know what that you
		

			To be like, and you know, they're, you know, they say in Arabic, there's a saying in Arabic, you
know, khulumani, everything forbidden is desirable. Right. So even though we, after faith, you
develop a regret and an embarrassment over the sins you and I may have committed, and we develop
almost a hatred for repeating those sins again, at the end of the day, we're also human beings and
human beings have temptations and desires. And that's one of the things that shaytan wants to
manipulate. So he'll pull you try to pull you back, and try to get you to say, Hey, come on, you
know how it used to be right? It was so much better for you, you felt so much easier there was and
		

			why deny yourself who's going to find out, just go back. So he wants to pull you back. Until we have
seen. This is the way that he comes at you from behind so many polls that you from what is drawing
you into what used to be, you know, and you have to be mindful of that. It may be and this is a lead
us into talking about how shaitaan attacks us from the right. Maybe I'll talk a little bit about
that today. But I want you to understand something cheban doesn't necessarily tell us to do the
wrong thing. This is important. chevonne doesn't necessarily tell us to do the wrong thing. shaitaan
wants us to take one step. And when you take one if a destination is 1000 miles away,
		

			if a destination is 1000 miles away,
		

			and you just took one step, you're not going to feel like you took any made any progress. You're not
going to feel any harm. If there's a fire 100 feet away, and you took one step towards the fire. Are
you gonna feel any hotter? No.
		

			I didn't do it. I didn't burn. Nothing bad happened. And he's okay with one step. He's completely
okay with one step. And if somebody else says, hey, you're taking a step, what did I touch the fire?
I didn't touch it. There's nothing wrong with that. So he says, Yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong
with it just a little bit, just a little bit. And then the next time around just a little one more
step. Just one more step. Just one more step. This is exactly what you did with our parents. The
entirety of gender, the size of gender is greater than the skies in the earth, I do have some what
what are,
		

			the real estate size of Heaven is the entire skies and the earth combined.
		

			All of it combined. And gender is called gender because the Arabic word gender means covered in
green, are covered in trees. So all of Heaven is covered in endless trees. Now think about this, how
many trees were forbidden one
		

			in an endless universe of trees. So even if that one tree is forbidden, staying away from it would
be pretty easy, because it probably would be hard to find because there's one tree in trillions and
trillions of trees. And yet chatline gets them to take one step, then another step, then another
step, one step at a time, you won't come out and say, dude, no, no, no, he'll mask it, somehow.
He'll mask it. And that leads me into at least introducing you to how the devil pulls us from the
right. How shaitan gets this from the right, understand that the first thing about the right that
you that I'd like you to know is that the Arabic word right is used for good deeds. It's also used
		

			for honor and nobility. When somebody gives you their you mean actually means their right hand means
they've taken the pledge or an oath. When people shake hands the right hand, that means that they're
going to honor their, their their deal. You know, and in, in many cultures, it's the right hand. As
a matter of fact, when you go to court and testify the fact that it your testimony is good and
credible as you raise your right hand. So the idea of the right hand in Arab culture, and also other
cultures, is that of nobility, good deeds, doing things the right way, which is why on Judgment, a
we are going to be we pray to Allah that we are people of the right hand us How will you mean for
		

			people of the right hand? So the right is associated with good? Similarly, the angel that you know
about documents are good deeds on the right. So the idea of the right is associated with good, which
is confusing because the devil is trying to attack you from the right, you would think the devil
would attack you from evil deeds. But what Ally's saying is the devil's actually going to try to
attack you in me from good deeds, what in the world does that mean? There are lots of ways that he
does that, I will introduce you to one of them today, inshallah. And we'll call it a day because I
don't want you to get, I want you to keep some of these things present in your mind. Also, I can, I
		

			can deliver lots of information to you. But I want you to be able to retain these things and spend
time this week thinking about them. My hope in these hobas as we go through these ir totalav is that
we consciously think about what what this means in our lives. you consciously Well, this is what the
devil does. How does he do that in my life? This is this is what he talked about, hear about a lot
told us here. Well, how does that apply to me you and the way it applies to you may not be the way
it applies to the person sitting next to you, the person even in your family. It's different
		

			For you and is different from someone else because he studies each of us separately. He attacks each
of us separately. So from the right, just one thing that I want to highlight to you, and inshallah
we'll talk about more next week in sha Allah is that he comes at us, Allah says was in Allahu
shaitana Amala home that shaytaan beautify their deeds to them. This is one of the scariest ways he
comes at us from the right. You will you know, we came in prayed. That's a good thing. We did a good
deed. People go to do hedges. That's a good thing. People fasted. That's a good thing. These are
good deeds, somebody give charity, that's a good thing. You help somebody that's a good thing. But
		

			when you start thinking that your good deeds are absolutely accepted by Allah, and you're all set.
You have nothing to worry about now, because you've done good deeds, because you prayed, so you're a
good person. And all those people who don't pray, I feel sorry for them. Because you're now in a
better position because you did something good. And that he starts gassing you up with your good
deeds. And he starts filling you with this false image of yourself that because you've done so much
good, clearly, you're amazing. Clearly, Allah loves you. And you're so much better than those people
who don't do those good deeds. Now, these good deeds, the purpose of them, every time we do
		

			something good for Allah. I want you to remember just one example and that is of Abraham and his
setup. Ibrahim alayhis salaam did one of the most amazing deeds ever done. He built the Kaaba.
		

			And think about that every time somebody prays, he gets a part of that reward because we pray
towards the Kaaba. So since its construction, just like you know, people who helped build this
place, anybody who prays here, they get a reward, they get a piece of that. Anybody who prays in any
Masjid anywhere on Earth, every time they pray, a piece of that reward goes to Ibrahim alayhis
salam. It's incredible, the deed that he did. And you know what, when he was building the Kaaba with
his son, is one of the most amazing things if you want to talk about a deed that you did, which
means you're set. I mean, your account of good deeds is the commission is incredible. It's
		

			incredible. As he's building the car, but you know what he made? He asked a lot of binotto cabal
mina inaka, Anta semiology, our Master, please accept from us. Please accept from us as though he's
not confident that this is good enough. Maybe one brick didn't go in the right place. Maybe my
intention wasn't as pure as I needed to be. Maybe Allah is not pleased with one. Maybe I got a
little lazy here that he's questioning himself. He's not confident Yella. Thank you for giving me
this honor. Now that I'm sad, I can be on vacation. No, no, no. There's no such thing for him. He
didn't lay back and become complacent because he's doing good things. You know, he's worried and
		

			he's begging Allah, Allah, please accept from us. When you and I pray tomorrow, at the end of that
prayer, how confident are we that the angels documented a perfectly executed prayer or within our
mind goes somewhere that our phone, you know, Buzz for a second and our mind went somewhere else? Or
we were thinking about 20 different things when we were praying, you know, or we were, you know,
generating and bothering somebody else. When we're praying. We do all kinds of things when we're
praying, how imperfect are our prayers for you? And I think, man, I went to Jamaica.
		

			I got there even before the event.
		

			So for that, that's like, I should get like VIP tickets to agenda.
		

			Because seriously, I pulled it off.
		

			That's not the attitude. That's not the attitude for fasting or Hajj, or any any act of worship or
any good deed. Don't remind yourself of the good You and I have done to remind yourself and I remind
myself to beg Allah to accept whatever we've done. That's, that's, that's, and that's what she has
done doesn't want. He wants us to think we're all good. Now that you did a good deed you're set. So
May Allah azza wa jal protect us from the attack of shaitaan that comes from behind and May Allah
protect us from the attack of shaitaan that comes from the right barakallahu li walakum fille Quran
and Hakeem on a funny way, at vertical Hakeem