Part 1-Ayat 17 of Surah Al-A'raf : How Shaitan(Devil) attacks from the Front

Allah SWT says in ayat 17 of Surah Al-A'raf,

ثُمَّ لَأٓتِيَنَّهُم مِّن بَيْنِ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِمْ وَعَنْ أَيْمَٰنِهِمْ وَعَن شَمَآئِلِهِمْ وَلَا تَجِدُ أَكْثَرَهُمْ شَٰكِرِينَ

("I will approach them from their front, their back, their right, their left, and then You will find most of them ungrateful.”)

This is what Shaitan(Iblees) told to Allah SWT. In this post In sha Allah I will try to explain how shaitan attacks us from front. Lets get ready to know Shaitan's strategies so that it will become easy for us to defend ourselves against his attacks in sha Allah. And to know How Shaitaan attacks from the behind, visit following link.
Part 2-Ayat 17 of Surah Al-A'raf : How Shaitan(Devil) attacks from Behind

Surah Al-A'raf [7:17]

Arabic words ‘mim baini aidihim’ in this verse literally means 'in front of them'. Actually It means lot more than that. It is immediately what is in front of you and hitting you. It's not something far away. Shaitan is invisible. We don't see him. We don't hear his voice. So how does he attacks us from front ? When we open our eyes, what is right in front of us is world around us. It's talking about the things that we see everyday. Human being has tendency to be impulsive. Human beings just want to explode and jump on a thing that is just right in front of them. Shaitan wants to capitalised on that. There are things that are right in front of you and shaitan says come on, just enjoy yourself a little, it's not that bad. He doesn't want you to think about the future consequence of something. 

He wants you to think of what is immediately in front of you right now. When one sees alcohol in front of him, He just wants to enjoy that immediately. Despite knowing it is harmful. Shaitan doesn't want you to think about its consequences as it will be later i.e it is away. And we become like we want particular thing right now. The another meaning of what is right in front of us is material thing. In other words Shaitan wants us to obsessed with things that we can see. For example someone constantly thinks about one car that he wants to have. The other one is constantly thinking about how do I look. So one is just constantly obsessed with material like goods, appearance, brands, products and what am I going to show off and so on. Shaitan does not let us be satisfied and happy with whatever we have. 

In surah An-naas Allah says “Shaitan whispers into the chest of the people”. Thing about the word ‘chest’ in the arabic language is that it's actually used also for emotions. Allah says at other place in Quran that “To heal the chest of a believing people”. What that means is, when Allah uses the word chest, he actually also referring to our emotions, our feelings which are anger, fear, love, greed, attraction, laziness, enthusiasm etc. All of these feelings that you and I experience every day is a part of our chest. These all are normal emotions and is natural. It's part of what we are. But shaitan uses them and manipulates them. He uses them to mess you up. Like he uses your sadness to mess you up.

Wanting something is not bad. In heavens Allah offer us beautiful gardens and houses, waterfalls and many things. Why would we be attracted to those stuffs if we are not interested in them now. The fact that Allah made us attracted to those thing now is what makes heaven so appealing. But problems arises when shaitan takes those emotions out of balance and he wants us to cross the limits. Human being wants things that come quickly. So shaitan takes advantage of this. He excites your feeling saying why do you want to wait when you can have it right now? Don't you want to be happy and so on. And at that time you can't see anything but what you desire. It blinds you to the point where you don't want to think about what's gonna happen afterward, what damage it will do to others or yourself. That's actually one of the great attack of shaitan from front.

Also Read : Part 6-Deep explanation of Ayat 7 of Surah Al Fatiha

When something is in front of you, for example you are driving a car and you got stuck in traffic and there is a big truck right in front of you. In that case you don't know how bad the traffic is. You can’t even look around because the truck is so big. Your view is completely blocked. It Means when something is in front of you, you can't look ahead. That's one thing that shaitaan wants. And What is actually ahead of you and me is meeting with Allah. With every passing breath that we take, we are heading towards Allah. Whether one wants to accept that or not. That meeting is unavoidable. But shaitan does not want us to see that. He wants us to see meeting with friends next day, next vacation plan and so on as all these are in front of us. He wants us to engage in short terms plans and make us forget our long-term goals. But Allah wants us to think for longer plan, which is Aakhira(hereafter). What planning are we making for that ? Shaitan wants us to have no directions in life so that there is no goal in front of us. And the goal that Allah set for us is meeting with him.

Another thing which is also in front of us is our anxiety and fear. Shaitan wants that we keep worrying about our future. We are barely in control of ourselves but we think we have a control of what others are going to do and we control their future. For example when it come to children, parents think they are controlling their child’s future. Because we easily forget that the incharge is Allah. The one in control over everyone is Allah. But shaitan wants us to think that we are in charge and that is actually something only Allah has the right to. And when we try and fail to control people's life which we actually can never control then we become more negative. And when someone becomes negative constantly, it's impossible for him to be grateful. 

Look at how this ayah gonna end. Iblees is telling to Allah that ‘You are not gonna find most of them grateful ’. Because we are anxious about future. We are worried about our future and our loved ones. What if she says that or she does that and so on. It is negative all the time. And we are just so overwhelmed by these petty things that we forget that Allah controls the future. He owns it not me, not you. And the fact that we have one good peaceful day or moment was not because we earned it or we planed it or we control it. Its Allah who gives relief. The fact that our body is still functioning is because Allah gives us abilities. We forget that and we think that we have to figure out and control our future.

One of the greatest tricks of shaitan is to make us pessimistic about the future. And he get success in that when we start thinking that nothing's gonna work out, it's all gonna be bad, nothing ever worked anyway, It's always gonna fail and so on. And we become so negative and starts throwing negative on others also. If a person is pessimistic than how can he has hope in Allah ? Then with what heart he is making dua to Allah ? If he already accepted defeat inside than nothing is gonna work out as he has no expectation from Allah. The most essential relationship we have with Allah which is that of asking him, having hope in him we cut that of. By definition shaitan is hopeless. and he wants us to be hopeless too.

Also Read: Part 1-Deep understanding of Ayat 70 of Surah Al-Ahzab

Human beings are meant to be goal driven. It is not bad but shaitan wants us to be consumed with lesser goals and he drives us to be so immersed in them that we see nothing else. We are suppose to be goal driven. I should have goal about my health, education, career etc. But I should always remind myself that those goals are never actually my actual purpose. They are only a means to a larger end. We forget that we are on this earth for limited time and our main purpose here is not to get job, money, house or another worldly things. Because in anyways we are going to leave all these stuffs behind.

Our purpose here was actually to do some kind of good for ourselves. Some kind of good that will live longer than we live. That's the purpose for which we are in this world. And if we have that in our mind, then our education, house, cars, career and all leads us to do something good. And now these things has a purpose. These things in a themselves are not the purpose. But shaitaan wants to take those things and makes your purpose. For example If having luxurious car is our goal and we achieve that also than what if it meets an accident and just becomes debris and waste ? And same is the case with all worldly stuffs, they are not permanent. Then why should we run after goals which are going to vanish and will not benefit us in any ways ones we leave this world. But shaitan does not want us to think this way by attacking from the front.

What is ahead of us only Allah knows like happiness ,sadness, some occasions and so on. But one thing that we all know is that we have time ahead of us. May be some of us have few seconds or some of us have few years. Little or more but everyone have it. And shaitaan comes and again attacks from the front. He wants us to have no respect for our time. He wants us to think that we have all the time in the world and there's is no urgency to do anything meaningful in life except of our desires. So when some meaningful things comes in your ways he says that you got time. We will ruin our future by wasting our time. And when we are done wasting it, we look back and we wish we had not wasted our so much time. So we become even more hopeless. That's the game that shaitan plays with us.

These were the multiple attacks of shaitan from the front against us. So how do we fight these attacks of devil? 

Muhammad SAW said “Oh Allah I want you to show me reality of the things as they really are”. So everything that we see in front of us is just a cover. There is a reality and purpose behind it. Problem is we are giving value to things at face value. We don't look behind them which actually has a value. Allah says in Quran “They have eyes they don't see with them.” It means they don't see reality with them. They just see shallow thing in front of them. There is eye that we have to develop for what really has meaning and purpose. And when that happens the way we spend our time, the way we think about things, the way we value things, the way we prioritise things all of that starts changing. Because at the end of the day this entire life that we have left is few breaths that we have until we go and meet with Allah. 

On the day of Judgment all of it will boil down to one thing as Allah says in Quran, “Human beings will be informed on that day; what did you make priority and what did you make secondary”. We should make a choice on what is priority and what could wait and what is less important. That's all it is. But shaitan wants us to mess up by making us think of wrong priorities and he put us aside when it is actually important. May Allah SWT makes us of those who puts up the priorities in the right place and don't allow the whisper of shaitan to distract us from our purpose.

In this blog article, I tried to explain how shaitan attacks from the front. This was based on my notes taken from one of the khutba of brother Nouman Ali Khan.

Also Read : Mind blowing connection of 3 Dreams in Quran