wanting others to praise them so that their good deeds are wasted. Sometimes, he fulfils his aim by creating hidden enmity in the hearts of Muslims. Sometimes, he disgraces people in this life and the hereafter by getting them to be disobedient to their parents. Sometimes, he deprives people from getting the unaccountable reward of patience by making them impatient and making them shout and scream during illness. Sometimes, he prevents people from offering Salah, performing obligatory acts and learning obligatory and necessary knowledge of Deen. Sometimes, he stops people from reciting the Holy Quran. Sometimes, he makes people lazy in performing good deeds. All in all, Satan tries to entrap people in numerous ways to make his enmity apparent. We must be wary of his strikes.

صَلُّوۡا عَلَى الۡحَبِيۡب                 صَلَّى اللّٰهُ عَلٰى مُحَمَّد

Ostentation: A tool of Satan

O devotees of the prophet! There is no doubt that Satan does not allow us to perform virtuous actions. If we try hard and do manage to carry out some good deeds, then Satan tries his utmost best to prevent our worship, charity and alms from being accepted. He tries to ensure that we make such a mistake in our worship that it goes to waste or he tries to put in our heart that after we worship, it must be known to other people that we have worshipped. Whether or not anyone else announces our worship, we ourselves go on to make our good deeds apparent unnecessarily without a Shar’i reason and do not refrain from praising ourself. Hence we entangle ourselves in the trap of ostentation laid out by Satan.

صَلُّوۡا عَلَى الۡحَبِيۡب                 صَلَّى اللّٰهُ عَلٰى مُحَمَّد

Definition of ostentation

Ameer-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat ‘Allamah Maulana Muhammad Ilyas ‘Attar Qaadiriدَامَـتْ بَـرَكَـاتُـهُـمُ الْـعَـالِـيَـهْ has written in ‘Call to Righteousness’, page 66: To perform worship with any intention other than to please Allah عَزَّوَجَلَّ (is ostentation). In other words, ostentation is to perform worship with the intention of informing