Deception: Study of Shaytan.
And I want to share with you one of his most continuous tricks.
فَوَسْوَسَ إِلَيْهِ الشَّيْطَانُ قَالَ يَا آدَمُ هَلْ أَدُلُّكَ عَلَىٰ شَجَرَةِ الْخُلْدِ وَمُلْكٍ لَّا يَبْلَىٰ“
Then Shayṭān whispered to him; he said, ‘O Ādam, shall I direct you to the tree of eternity and possession that will not deteriorate?’” [20:120]
You see, Iblis is a master of distorting reality. The tree that Allah had commanded them to not come near, was now being called the tree of eternity.
Iblīs will either take the goodness and make it appear as evil or take evil and make it appear as something good. In this case, Iblīs is taking something evil and making it appear as something good. The evils in society are given a positive name and as a result, we may accept it. Shayṭān will make Zina look enticing and call it making love. Iblīs makes people think about sexual freedom and not think that it is a big deal to have sex outside of marriage. We see the effects in our society: divorce, single parents raising kids, STDs, etc.
Iblīs will never remind you of these things. Iblīs deceives people into thinking things are good. He will get people to label each other. When you label someone, you can distort reality very easily. You turn people into caricatures and stereotypes and then can attack the stereotype irrespective if that is actually true of the person you are addressing. It is one of the tricks he uses most frequently.
