Spiders in the room...
In the Name of Allah the Most Beneficent Most Merciful
All Praises are due to Allah Lord of the Worlds, Light of the Heavens and the earth and all that is between.
I have been very indecisive about this posting this, but in the end I decided to cut out most of it and just leave in what will be the most beneficial insha Allah.
For those of us who have been blessed to have attended the 'Out of Sight' course, will know how much of an eye-opener it is. Opening our hearts and minds to a world we merely acknowledged as existed.
The course starts off amazingly as any other course, but by mid day when the discussion drifts from the topic of the angels to the topic of the jinns, the warmth of being in a environment surrounded by angels is replaced by an uneasy feeling and paranoia.
Maybe the paranoia doesn't manifest immediately but then when it turn night and we are in our own bedrooms... grown men shiver in their pajamas after listening to lecture about jinns so the sister need not feel ashamed.
Does this mean that we don't have strong eman? Or lack of knowledge? And is there any way to prevent this feeling?
It is not really a question of eman or knowledge, because we already sitting in a gathering where our eman is strong and attaining knowledge- (correct me if im wrong) those who have been to the course more than once probably still felt that paranoia at the mention of jinns etc.
I suppose it doesn't help if i was to say that there is no real way to block this feeling, as such because its a natural human instinct to exaggerate the harm and then be over protective.
Maybe an example will help
eg. Who remembers the Dettol advert where they begin by saying "There is more bacteria on your chopping board than the toilet seat..."
As you can see from this example that as soon as someone tells us about the bacteria on our chopping boards, we feel a bit of paranoia, our minds exaggerates the reality and we imagine nasty little bugs and instinctively think twice about using the chopping board and may even go out of our way to clean it with anti-bacterial washing up liquid or a detergent of some type to get rid of the germs.
Even though we have been using the same chopping board for months even years and just washing it normally with normal Fairy Liquid. And we have not fallen ill or become infected with some disease or something.
And like wise we become paranoid if someone said there was a spider in the room but its scurried off somewhere before being caught or killed.
Our mind naturally exaggerates the issue and we imagine this spider dangling down or crawling into our nose or ear.
Sometimes we refuse to sleep in the room, other times we stay awake from fear.
If no mention of the spider was made then you would undoubtedly slept in the room with no fear.
So in the same way, the mention of jinns is bound to create some paranoia in people's mind since we have so much exaggerated rubbish that are promoted by movies (Exorcist, Darkness Falls to name a couple) and ghost stories.
Sometimes a bit of paranoia is good because it increases our awareness and we start to take necessary precaution and protective duas, but obviously too much of it is not good.
I don't think eman and knowledge can prevent paranoia as such because a person can have both and still feel paranoid.
The only way to over come it (from experience) is to have strong conviction in the hadith about the reality of the jinn. I suppose it helps if you have "seen" them in action so to speak.
Eg. The shayateen run away when you recite the adhaan (with eman), they can't open/ enter through a door which you closed saying bismillah, they cant enter the home if you recite surah Baqarah, they can't even touch you if you read the protective adkhaar below;
It was narrated from Abu Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said:
“Whoever says “Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah wahdahu laa shareeka lah, lahu’l-mulk wa lahu’l-hamd wa huwa ‘ala kulli shay’in qadeer” one hundred times in the day, will have a reward equivalent to that of freeing ten slaves, one hundred hasanahs (good deeds) will be recorded for him, and one hundred sayi’ahs (bad deeds) will be erased from his record, and it will be protection for him from the Shaytaan for that day, until evening comes. No one could achieve any better than him except the one who does more than he did.”
(narrated by al-Bukhaari, 31119; Muslim, 2691)
When you have that certainty that the words of the prophet (pbuh) are the truth and therefore definitely "work", when recited with understanding and sincerity (as opposed to parrot fashion), then it creates peace and tranquility in the mind.
As salamu alaykum
Abu Musa
