As for God’s saying: “If Satan makes insinuations against you, seek refuge in Al’lah. He is All-Hearing and Omniscient.”: it is an address to the believer, and not to His noble messenger (cpth).
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 7, Al-A’raf (The Heights), verse 199
The believers wanted to guide those of their people who were idolaters, and so they set up meetings and sat down with them in order to advise them and show them the way of belief. Yet that did not convince them since they were polytheists; that is to say, they did not know that the Almighty controls everything.
Therefore, the prophet (cpth), ordered his companions, the believing admonishers, to follow God’s saying in the noble verses which is: “Show forgiveness, speak for justice, and turn away from the ignorant.”: that is, do not let them impress you. Do not care about those who do not follow this way of belief. Turn away from them with your spirit and do not let them befoul it. Admonish them, but do not let your heart be attached to them. “If Satan makes insinuations against you…”: that is, against you, the believer, who seeks to guide people. If the devil’s insinuations reach you through those ignorant men, then you should “…seek refuge in Al’lah…”: meaning resort to Him, because “He is All-Hearing and Omniscient.”: He hears what you are saying and knows your state, believer! They may speak with you, so turn to God in order not to be affected by what they are saying. And if one is impolite with you, the Almighty will protect you. Seek refuge in God. This is what the pious do everywhere and every time.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 7, Al-A’raf (The Heights), verse 199-200
Insinuation may also occur:
· Either when the pure faithful heart inclines to people of suspicion and distance from God, and thereby the status of one to whom the faithful spirit was attached and to whom it inclined will become imprinted in its mirror.
In this case, such a person has but to break with this other person who is far from God, and then thank God for His protection and His rescue, and seek refuge in Him from the state of people who are far from Him and who shun Him;
· Or as a result of one’s inclination to mean and worldly desires. This is because when the heart admires something and inclines to it, this thing will settle in it and distract such a heart from God. God says: “Al’lah has not made for any man two hearts in his (one) body...”: the worldly life and the other life – that is, vice and paradise – do not exist together in one heart.
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 33, Al-Ahzab (The Combined Clans), verse 4
So, in such a case, the devil will hurry to this person and seduce them with their desire, wishing to allow them to attain what they desire so as to turn them away from their link with God and their entrance into His Presence.
As for the believer, when the devil approaches them with his whispering, they feel his temptations and insinuations and suffer from heartache and dejection. Yet they soon remember God’s recommendations to them when He (glory to Him) says in His Holy Book: “If Satan makes insinuations against you, seek refuge in Al’lah. He is All-Hearing and Omniscient.”
So, they resort to Him and enter His Presence, and meanwhile, the devil retreats, defeated, and absents himself from the scene. Thus, the spirit becomes pure of what had been attached to it because it is now near to its Provider, and it towers a rank higher than its previous rank. The Almighty says: “Those who are illuminated by God’s light, when a thought of evil from Satan touches them, bring Al’lah to remembrance, when lo! They see (the reality of this thought).”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 7, Al-A’raf (The Heights), verse 201
Piety (which is to become illuminated with God’s light) aims at making you remember God so as to view the evil that is hidden within this temptation, and thereby you are able to avoid it and abandon it.
That is also the direction of the messenger (cpth) which he revealed to the believers in Fussilat Fortress, when God says: “Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel evil with what is better: then will he between whom and you was hatred become as though he were your dearest friend! But none will attain this save those who endure with fortitude – none but people of the greatest good fortune. And if insinuation is made against you by the evil one, seek refuge in God. He is the All-Hearing, the Omniscient.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 41, Fussilat (explained), verse 34-36
“And if insinuation is made against you by the evil one, seek refuge in God…”: this is addressed to the believer; “…He is the All-Hearing, the Omniscient.”: this was an address of the noble messenger (cpth) to the believers during his celestial lessons: who demonstrates that Al’lah is the All-Hearing, the Omniscient? It is the messenger (cpth).
He advises the believers to seek refuge in God in the face of the devil and his insinuations, when calling people to truth and leading them to the straight path.
But how does this ‘seeking refuge’ work? And what is it?