114- Surah Al Nas (Men) English translation (1-6)

1. Beseech: ‘I seek refuge with the Lord of (the whole of) mankind,

2. Who is the King of (all) mankind,

3. Who is the God of the (whole) human race,

4. From the evil of slinking whisperer (Satan) who hides himself withdrawing (from the influence of Allah’s remembrance),

5. Who whispers into the hearts of mankind,

6. Whether he (the whispering Satan) comes from the jinn or mankind.’

113- Surah Al Falaq (the Fission) English translation (1-5)

1. Beseech: ‘I seek refuge with the Lord Who brought (the universe) into existence with (an) explosion extremely fast,

2. From the evil influence

It is the Book of Knowledge and Success. 

105- Surah Al Fīl (the Elephant) English translation (1-5)

1. Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with those who had elephants?

2. Did He not thwart their crafty designs?

3. And He sent on to them (ambient) swarms of birds,

4. Which pelted them with stone-hard slugs.

The Harms of Shisha & Hookah

I know of many Muslims who are using shisha (also known as Hookah) and think there’s no harm in this. This is not the case and that’s probably because (to my knowledge) the scholars have not adequately promoted this issue – certainly I haven’t come across enough education on shisha. Shisha is the new social thing, men and women are doing it and children see this and also think there is nothing wrong. However this is a grave misunderstanding, and there is a ruling to say it is haraam (see bottom of post), and I’ll explain why. Please note that in the UK it is illegal to sell any tobacco products to anyone under 18 and this includes tobacco products for shisha pipes.

What is Shisha?

The World of Jinns and Devils

I don’t think there will be many Muslims who haven’t heard about the Jinn but how much do we really know about them? There are many tales and stories about jinns – some made up and some true but we should always, in all endeavours, look towards the Qur’an and Sunnah to get knowledge about anything to do with deen and duniya – there is always Guidance from Allah there, be it science, social affairs, politics, character, or learning about the existence of other beings, such as the Jinn.

Essentially Jinn are made from smokeless flame of fire. There are good Jinn who are Muslim and there are evil Jinn. The leader of the evil Jinn is iblees (shaytaan). Iblees is not one of the angels, as is told by the Christians, but iblees was amongst the angels and given a high rank amongst the jinn. The arrogance and disobedience of iblees was exposed by Allah, when iblees was Ordered to prostrate before Prophet Adam (as). It is at this crucial point that iblees declared his enmity of mankind and sought to mislead humans by way of his evil and subtle whispers.

It is important that we learn about the jinn as some are mischief-makers and we share this world with them. In addition, there are some bad humans who work with jinns, in order to mislead people from following and putting their belief in Allah alone. The sufis and berailwis in particular have many stories amongst them about black magic and jinn, which does not inspire confidence in the way they practise their ‘version’ of Islam (typically bits of Islam mixed with falsehood).

An excellent book about Jinn is the one written by Dr. Umar Al-Ashqar, which you can download from this post – The World of the Jinn and Devils. I have written a few excerpts from the book below.

“”And remember when we said unto the angels: Fall prostrate before Adam, and they fell prostrate, all save Iblees. He was of the Jinn, so he rebelled against his Lord’s command” (al-Kahf 20). Furthermore, it has also been confirmed from an authentic text that the jinn are not the same as the angels or as the humans. The Prophet said, “The angels have been created from light, the jinn from fire and Adam was created from clay.” (This was recorded in Sahih Muslim’) Al-Hasan al-Basri said, “Iblees was not from the angels even for the blinking of an eye. (Quoted from ibn Katheer, al-Bidaaya wa al-Nihaaya vol. 1, p.79)

The residence of the jinn and their places and the times that they can be found

The jinn live upon the same earth as humans do. Most of them can be found among the ruins and dilapidated areas, as well as the places where there are many impure things, such as, bathrooms, hashish dens, the places of the camels, cemeteries. For that reason, as Ibn Taimiya said, those people who are close to Satan usually inhibit such areas. There are hadith that say that one should not pray in bathrooms due to the impurities present and because it is the abode of Satan, or in cemeteries as this leads to polytheism and it is also a home for the devils. Many of them are in the places which may be sources of evil, such as the marketplaces.