We often hear about spiritual diseases and how widespread they are and about their large increase. There is no street you may walk on without meeting someone who is a patient of such a disease.
You will see them wearing tattered, dirty and disgusting clothes, with beards that have grown until they reach their bellies.
If you sniff the bad odor that comes from them, you will soon feel like you are about to fall unconscious. You will find that they sometimes speak with themselves or wrestle with the air. They claim to be people of God although God says: “…Honor belongs to Al’lah and His messenger and to the faithful…”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 63, Al-Munafiqun (The Hypocrites), verse 89
They may also claim to lead an ascetic life while, in fact, they are far from God and His supreme religion. They have followed the devil, their enemy, and have taken him as an intimate to the point that he has drawn them into his world. He has shown himself to them and they have seen him.
So, their speech in the streets in loud voices is nothing other than talking to the devils of jinn-kind whom they see and follow, and indeed, their spirits live in the same mean worlds. Thus, every one of these people has become a human devil that is used as a mount for the devils from among the jinns so as to achieve their purposes and aims, which are to cause harm, to use magic, and to engage in other kinds of evil.
Such a person has chosen this ignominy as an end for themselves in their present life before their life to come, since they have followed their enemy, Satan. God says: “Some men of humankind have sought the help of some of the jinns, but they made them more stressed.”
The Holy Qur’an,
Fortress 72, Al-Jinn (The Jinn), verse 6
It was reported that some Muslim women said to the Lady Aisha (may God be pleased with her): “There is a man, ascetic and Sufi, putting wool on his body, walking barefooted and running in the roads.”[40]
But she said: “He is not an ascetic. He is a liar that wants to discredit the Islamic religion. He makes it objectionable in people’s eyes with this kind of behavior.
Then she continued: “Omar was the most ascetic man of all people. Yet, when he walked, he sped along (that is, with a walk that indicated honor and strength, like that of a lion); just as he caused pain when he hit people (when establishing what was right and vanquishing what was false); and gratified whom he fed (which indicated his noble spirit and his generosity).”
So, she showed that this imposter did not have any quality of asceticism or piety and confirmed that religion is free from displays of such a type.
There is another group of people who hate those devils who are devils of humankind and jinn-kind. They fear them and are apprehensive about them to the point that they become obsessed with them and scruples fill their chests. They wish to free themselves from such a state but they find no way to do so. They do not know that these devils have power over them because of their own misdeeds. So they make their own lives bitter because of things that oblige them to resort to psychiatrists. But alas! When they do so, the disaster will grow graver and more dangerous and they will get no benefit from their actions.
Those psychiatrists will ascribe their states to physical and bodily matters which are completely moved from the real reasons. So they will prescribe calming and sleeping pills for them until they become addicted to them and are unable to sleep without having them. Thus, the problem will become worse and worse until those maniacs finally surrender to the dirty end which will drop them into the valley of lowness and degradation in this life and in the life to come.
They will become friends of the devil, who will use them to achieve his lowly, evil purposes of vice and wrongdoing by means of magic. Sometimes, they will hide their true nature by acting like crazy people, trying to make people feel sympathy for them. Thus, they draw people’s hearts down into lowness and degradation, exactly as the devil does.
In fact, these poor people will not be cured unless they turn to their Provider in repentance of their wrongdoings, as this is the only healing and effective medicine and there is no substitute for it at all.
They should resort to God, seeking His protection, and should ask Him to save them from this horrible and fearful situation, and should promise Him not to return to whatever actions they were doing that were in violation of God’s Law. By resorting to their Provider, they can recognize their sins, and so they should turn to their Provider in true repentance and become entirely straight and follow His Commands. The Almighty would then protect them from all evil and damage and would overwhelm them with heart’s bliss and happiness, in this way making them dispense with the delights of those vices of which they have repented.
Congenitally, the human spirit does not surrender and seek refuge and protection unless it is to seek it from a powerful one, and nor does it have trust, except in one that is full of strength.
But how can the spirit yield to God when it has not yet witnessed a part of His might, His strength or His singularity in perfection?
This witnessing can be accomplished only by real belief, which arises from a personal reflection on the cosmic signs, such as the sun, the moon, the stars, the day and the night, and the different plants and seasons. At such a time, the spirit shall see that all that is in the universe was brought into being and moves only by the provision, the sustenance and the steering of Him, the Almighty, and shall also see that He owns and controls everything, whether small or great. In such a state, the spirit shall fear death and the meeting with God, and so, it will seek refuge in God (glory to Him) and resort to Him, and only then it shall perform real and heartfelt communication with God, as opposed to the formal kind of communication. With that, a person can be rescued and protected from all evil, all kinds of suffering and all sin. There will be no hand that can cause them any evil as long as they remain in the fort of the Great Almighty and are resorting to Him, and doing so directly upon His order with no deviation. Thus they will be freed from all that distresses them and will turn back to enjoy the bliss and the heavenly gardens for which they have been created by performing good deeds and charity. Now, let us read the following story, which shows the effect of mentioning God’s Name when it is issued from the heart of a truthful believer who seeks refuge in Him, the Almighty.