Lessons from the devil

There is no doubt that there are some creations of Allah are set to harm us. From people to animals to insects. But, Allah’s most evil creation is the devil. He does whatever he can to use as many people as he can as fuel for hell fire.

I think that Satan is the most successful salesman ever. He is selling hell and everyone is buying it. Nobody wants to go to hell yet most of us are doing the right things needed for a VIP membership.

Clearly he is succeeding, but has anyone ever thought of what good we can learn from him? How can we use it to succeed in our careers?

Loyalty: He did not bow down to anyone but Allah. (He did it as a proud defiance to Allah’s command, which is the worst unthinkable thing anyone could do)

Patience: He takes his time to study his target, identifies weak points which he can leverage on, plan his way and waits for the right time before he attacks.

Persistence: He tries over and over again to attack until his prey succumbs to it.

Determined: He has set a goal and he is doing whatever it takes to achieve it.

For you to be successful, you need to have all those traits in you. Be loyal to your organization, study your targets well, identify their weakness, identify an opportunity, offer them solutions, try again and again if you fail until you get it, and be focused and committed on one goal which is the success of your organization.


Once you have these traits in you, nothing but success awaits you!


Satan started with Adam and Eve, look at his clientele now!


Important!
I would like to highlight an important point, this article is just to highlight Satan’s methods and it should not be a justification of doing something evil or harm to anyone. The only difference between us and Satan is in the intentions; he is out to harm us while we should use the same methods to IMPROVE ourselves and others around us. 


Instead of us selling hell, we can sell heaven using the same methods!

Be the silent boss

As we all know that our lives depends on our career, if we don't have a good job we'll have to struggle to make ends meet.

Naturally, all of us want our efforts to be recognized, we try our best to work the hardest and impress our bosses by showing them that we are brilliant, proficient and shine in front of our clients in a hope for a promotion.

That is true without a doubt, but what we don't realize is that it could also be the key to a disaster in your career.

There's an unwritten rule in any organization which gives you faster recognition, makes you irreplaceable and makes you the most valuable person in the entire organization.

Never outshine your master!

Every person of influence in any organization is always inferior, selfish and egoistic. So, if you keep showing that you could handle things better and that you could transform the organization to a better position if you were the manager, you are digging a deeper hole for you to be in after he hangs you. He will see you as a threat to his position rather than a valuable contributor to the organization's success.

However, there is a way you can do that without putting your career at risk. In fact, it will bring you success faster than your peers.

Use his weakness as your tools! For example, if you wanted to tell your boss that the organization is in a mess and it needs an overhaul, you don't tell him that directly, but rather indirectly by suggesting to him that such improvements can be made in order for the organization to perform better and seek his opinion on them before you seek his approval. Once changes has been made, give him the credit!

By doing so you are not hurting his ego that he has been running a mess, instead you are stroking his ego and eliminating his inferiority by making him feel smart and important. Once you have done that a few times, he will be dependent on you (since you've made him shine before) you'll be more valuable to him than anyone else in the entire organization and this will make you most valuable and irreplaceable!

As time goes by, your peers will know that you were behind his successful decisions and will make you the perfect successor when he steps down.

Think of yourself as the northern star and your boss is the sun. He appears large and bright, but everyone seeks you for direction!

Victory against the devil is simple!

We all know that the devil is the most evil creation of Allah. He is sent to guide everyone towards the right path which leads to hell as it is mentioned in the quraan.

لَأَمْلَأَنَّ جَهَنَّمَ مِنَ الْجِنَّةِ وَالنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ

"I will fill Hell with jinn and mankind together" says Satan.

So now that we know what his objective is, what we need to do is to understand his strategies. The first rule in warfare is "know your enemy". For us to fight him well we need to know what weapons is he using and where will he be aiming at! Oh he knows us pretty well and he is using this at its best. We need to understand how he works in order to avoid falling into his traps.

Satan is a genius and his strategies are very effective. He leverages on our weakest points and leads us to self destruction. In addition to that, he will not be held liable for them on judgment day. Only we will be responsible for our actions as the ayah says:

وَقَالَ الشَّيْطَانُ لَمَّا قُضِيَ الأَمْرُ إِنَّ اللّهَ وَعَدَكُمْ وَعْدَ الْحَقِّ وَوَعَدتُّكُمْ فَأَخْلَفْتُكُمْ وَمَا كَانَ لِيَ عَلَيْكُم مِّن سُلْطَانٍ إِلاَّ أَن دَعَوْتُكُمْ فَاسْتَجَبْتُمْ لِي فَلاَ تَلُومُونِي وَلُومُواْ أَنفُسَكُم مَّا أَنَاْ بِمُصْرِخِكُمْ وَمَا أَنتُمْ بِمُصْرِخِيَّ إِنِّي كَفَرْتُ بِمَا أَشْرَكْتُمُونِ مِن قَبْلُ إِنَّ الظَّالِمِينَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ

"And Satan saith, when the matter hath been decided: Lo! Allah promised you a promise of truth; and I promised you, then failed you. And I had no power over you save that I called unto you and ye obeyed me. So blame me not, but blame yourselves. I cannot help you, nor can ye help me, Lo! I disbelieved in that which ye before ascribed to me. Lo! for wrong-doers is a painful doom".

It is important to know that this is a psychological warfare we fighting, he will whisper to us and we will hear it as what it seems like "thoughts" in our head as if we are talking to ourselves. Therefore, what he is doing is only convincing us to do what he wants us to do, the final decision is still ours!

 Some of our weakest points are mentioned in the bible as the seven deadly sins.

Greed, anger, sloth, envy, gluttony, pride and lust! These are satan's weapons which he uses brilliantly against us. Since every action has a reaction, it comes down to our reaction or what I would call "defense weapon" against him on these battle grounds:

These are some of the common thoughts we tend to think sometimes

Greed: Everything is ever enough, there's always more.
Envy: Always look at what other people's pockets, success, assets... etc.
Pride: The attention, the VIP status, the power, you are above the rest!

Defense: By saying الحمد لله .

Gluttony: Eat your guts out, you'll regret not eating this later, you still can stuff them down, you're still healthy, don't stop.

Defense: Start by saying بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم and end by saying الحمد لله .

Anger: How could they do that to you? You cant let it go! Make them feel what you felt! Let everyone know what happen! I feel like killing them!

Defense: By saying لا حول و لا قوة الا بالله .

Lust: OMG he/she is so hot! Try to get him/her to sleep with you tonight. Its worth it! If only he/she is in front of me now... I'd (fill up the rest)

Defense: By saying استغفر الله

Sloth: Its okay to miss fajr once in a while! go back to sleep! You can't go back to sleep after wudhu.. By the time you finish your wudhu, fajr time is already gone! or my favorite.... There's still time!

Defense: By saying اعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم

Another way to defend ourselves is to build a shield/strong fortress against him by reading Ayat alkursi, Surah Alfalaq and surah Annas. This will keep him away from us as we will be under the protection of an army of angels sent by the almighty.



As you can see that is very very simple to defeat him, the weapons which we use are words from the almighty himself! In addition to that, satan himself is weak as it is mentioned in the quraan

إِنَّ كَيْدَ الشَّيْطَانِ كَانَ ضَعِيفاً

"The devil was weak"


So don't fear him, fight him well and heaven itself will be your reward!

The war against hunger has become a war against starvation

I'm sure everyone has noticed that food prices especially for essentials such as rice and bread globally has increased substantially. Most analysts in the world will blame it on the world's growing population (increasing demand) and the drought season which is affecting countries such as Russia and Ukraine which produces about 90 million tonnes of wheat annually which represents about 14% of the total wheat globally (less supply).

From my analysis, These are nothing but excuses to justify farmers and exporter's greed for higher profits.There's no doubt that the global population is growing with Asia and Africa leading the chart. These are also continents with the highest poverty rates followed by Latin America. Keeping in mind that China and India are the largest producers of wheat and grain in the world according to FAO and yet poverty rates are increasing in these two countries. So who are these two countries feeding since obviously they are not feeding themselves?

The answer is clearly exporters favorite markets; the rich countries of Europe and North America as they fetch a much better price in addition to the currency high conversions. So who is taking care of Africa? They lack everything your mind can think of. They don't have a strong currency which countries such as Kuwait, Jordan and Singapore enjoy. To make matters worse, their inflation is rising faster than any developed nation which means that the standard of survival is getting even higher especially when Russia, the 4th largest producer of wheat halted its exports due to local shortage which translates to less global supply which will ultimately drive prices even higher.

As it is, some people in Africa are surviving on three meals a week. So how in the world are they going to even survive since prices are rising faster than a rocket which drives inflation up since their currencies are weak and they earn less than a dollar a day?