"...you should not worship Satan. Verily, he is a plain enemy to you..."
Oh! By the way, this particular piece will NOT go down well at all! So do NOT read on if you are easily offended.
My version of the Devil or Satan is not run of the mill type of devils with red skin, horns and sharp pointed tail. Neither do they sneak from behind. Nor does it devour you with sharp fangs at night.
It is most appealing and beguiling. In fact, some admits openly that they can't live without them.
These Devil Incarnate are our modern Idols. They are all over. In fact, we welcomed them with open arms in our homes. We placed them in revered positions above the fireplace, in special rooms, on tailor made altars, on specially decorated and designed walls, sited in fit-for-purpose niches...
Some swears that without these Idols, life will be meaningless and devoid of life itself.
Some need two or even all their presence at the same time!
Let me introduce them to you: Televisions, PS2s, PSPs, Computers...
I am no different from you.
Some would have a 52 inch plasma on a wall surrounded by other lesser Idols with different names; blue-ray, dvd player, astro. It would be left switched on for 20 hours a day. There are four different levels of audiences - nay, devotees: pre-schoolers, primary level, teenagers and adults. Prying the devotees away from this powerful Idol is VERY difficult. Sometimes, promises of sweets helps. At other times McD or the Colonel. A fair amount of offering (money ma!) must be placed before it can give you what you want; news, repeated movies, dramas, cartoons...
In another room would sit another Idol - devoted to games. TVs with PS2s or PS3s or Xboxes. When the devotees starts, nothing else matters. Not even the muezzin's pleading can wrench them away. Promises of fire and brimstone doesn't help either.
In a den somewhere you would have another Idol dedicated to www - PC with the ubiquitous Wi-Fi connection. Devotees will be immersed in "work", internet games, "facebook", chats, emails...there is no limit to it's powers. The offering is minuscule as compared to the vices it can provide...including gambling, pornography...
The problem with portable Idol is that it needs the Lord of the Idols - Television - to accompany it. If not, it seems incomplete. So, a laptop is the other devil incarnate.
Even this berry is also an Idol, if it is used for purposes other than "work" or "good deeds".
Only until '85 do I recollect that people stopped chatting or discussing or meetings or annual dinner speeches when they hear the muezzin's call for prayers. We are obliged, by the way, to reply to his call.
Maybe I am deaf or blind, but whatever happened to this "good manners"?
Idol worshipers are warned time and again in the Quran.
What sticks to mind is just one from Surat Yaaseen, verse 60 which translates as "...Did I not command you, O Children of Adam, that you should not worship Satan. Verily, he is a plain enemy to you..."
Almighty Allah, The Most Merciful, I seek Thy forgiveness for myself, my parents, my wife, my children, my kith and kin. I admit that my iman is infinitesimal. But I beg of Thee to shower them all with Thine Guiding Light, for my time is merely borrowed time and it is running short.
5th November 2011, Eid-ul-Adha
Sent by Maxis from my BlackBerry® smartphone
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