Minions

This is not a movie review, although I did start to watch the animation called Minions, but uncharacteristically for me I didn’t make it through the film.  This was a combination of a) watching it with my children and I deemed it wholly inappropriate and b) the “humour” is just plain silly.  The only funny things about the Minions are their looks, voices and names, remove that and what do you have?

minion

ˈmɪnjən/

noun

noun: minion; plural noun: minions

a follower or underling of a powerful person, especially a servile or unimportant one.

With the movie part out of the way, the purpose of this short post is to think about those minions around us who are the followers of Ash-Shaytaan or The Devil.  For the uninitiated let us get our terminology straight.

Ash-Shaytaan aka The Devil aka Lucifer aka Iblees is all one being.  He is a Jinn.  He used to be the best amongst the Muslim Jinn, such that he was raised to lofty ranks and it has been said he led an army of angels against the disbelieving Jinn.  His arrogance was to become his undoing and all his amazing actions e.g. praying on every spot in the earth came to nothing. 

Oh, and Iblees wasn’t his original name!

Iblees means one who despaired.  So when he disobeyed Allah in the Heavens i.e. he said No to Allah when He commanded Iblees to bow to Adam (AS) – he became destined for eternity in Hell because this is Class A Kufr (disbelief).  The Devil despaired and became man’s arch nemesis by vowing to take us all to Hell with him.  It’s amazing how someone can switch.

Anyway, Iblees has children – the Jinn marry and procreate and live lives etc.  They have children and they have followers and thousands of years on (remember Iblees was there before our father Adam), Ash-Shaytaan has hundreds and thousands of Shayateen aka little devils or MINIONS.

Now we have the link to the title! 

These minions can be from both the Jinn (who we don’t see unless they possess someone in which case we “see” them) and the humans (we see them all the time).  This fact is confirmed by Allah in Surah an-Nass in the last two verses – 

الَّذى يُوَسوِسُ فى صُدورِ النّاسِ

مِنَ الجِنَّةِ وَالنّاسِ

the ones who whisper into the hearts of man, from the Jinn and the humans.

The minions from the cartoon live their lives trying to find an evil master to serve and carry out their nefarious activities and it should be a reminder that there are shayateen in our lives trying to do the same.

There are shayateen who eat food with us every day, there are those who enter our houses, our beds, who try to cause arguments between husband and wife (the latter being the ones who are most esteemed by Iblees and literally sit by his side).

We have to be aware of this reality and just like we take protection for internet security, lock our cars, keep our passports safe – we should also keep our hearts protected from the whispers of the shayateen.

The only way to do this is by the dhikr of Allah, taking his name.  A great way of protecting yourself is by using the wird of Imam al-Haddad which is a collection of ayahs from the Quran, supplications and dhikr – taken from the hadith of the Prophet (SAW) to protect you in the morning and evening.

You can read it here and listen to it here.

May Allah protect us from the whispers of the Shaytaan