 Cases of human possession, animals, afflicting children, food contamination. As explained earlier that the application of the term shayateen is not limited to the devils among the jinn but in fact even humans who are evil and act devilish are included in this term. Firstly, the Quran mentions that evil comes from Allah’s creation especially with the time of maghrib[1] (sunset): (Al Quran 113:1–3) Say: "I seek refuge with the Lord of the dawn (rising day) from the mischief of created things and from the evil of night's darkness when it spreads around.” At night when business activity is at its lowest there are higher chances for harm and evil to occur. This harm that Allah ﷻ speaks of could be physical or psychological. For instance indulgence in alcohol usually takes place after sunset when people are off from daily routine and much evil happens as a result of that. In other instances if you are near a forest area, then wild animals come out at night and look for their prey. Since Jinns exist in an invisible radiation form such as infrared lasers, they can penetrate underdeveloped neurological systems like those of children or unstable ones like those of certain ferocious natured animals, such as wild dogs, wolves, coyotes, hyenas, snakes etc. They can even adopt appearances of certain animals. The Prophet ﷺ said: “There are three types of jinn: one that flies through the air, one that are snakes and dogs, and one which stay in places and travel about.”[2] The Prophet ﷺ also said “the dog that bites indiscriminately (al-kalb al-aqur) is a devil.” Other narrations say “The jet-black dog (al-kalb al-aswad al-bahim).”[3] Sheikh Gibril Haddad explains that the gist of the reference seems to be that a wild-looking dog, or one known to be dangerous.[4] Recently two large pit bulls, deadliest dog breed, that were raised by a young woman in the U.S state of Virginia, suddenly attacked her, mauled and killed her. These were her own dogs that she had raised. The parties investigating the case were scratching their heads as to what could have went wrong. What is amazing to hear is the words of a veterinary clinician Liz Stelow, who said: “But one thing is certain: The attack could have never happened out of the blue. I don’t think they were walking in the woods and they eyed each other and said, ‘Now is the time to attack her,’” [5] The devilish humans too conspire and plan to hurt others in many ways. For instance robberies usually take place at night and kidnappings as a result of human trafficking business around the world target women and children. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said to keep the children indoors after sunset: “Gather your children when darkness spreads, or in the evening, for the jinn (evil ones) are abroad and seize them.”[6] This warning to protect one’s children is not only from human devils but also jinn devils who afflict children because they consider them as easy targets for possession. An incident from authentic hadith source mention how the Prophet ﷺ performed exorcism on an afflicted child: “She called out, ‘O Messenger of Allah, this boy is afflicted with a trial, and from him we have also been afflicted with a trial. I do not know how many times per day he is seized by fits.’ He said, ‘Give him to me.’ So she lifted him up to the Prophet. He then placed the boy between himself and the middle of the saddle, opened the boy’s mouth and blew in it three times, saying, ‘In the name of Allah; I am the slave of Allah. Get out, enemy of Allah!' Then he gave the boy back to her and said, ‘Meet us on our return at this same place and inform us how he has fared.’ We then went. On our return, we found her in the same place with three sheep. When he said to her, How has your son fared?’ she replied, ‘By the One who sent you with the truth, we have not detected anything [unusual] in his behavior up to this time.’”[7] Consider the case of a Florida shooter who started hearing voices in his head when he was 5 years old. These increased with time and caused him to end up killing 17 people at the age of 19.[8] The Prophet ﷺ also advised not to send livestock animals out as they too become targets of ferocious beasts or human shayateen who might steal them from their owners: “Do not send out your beasts when the sun has set till the darkness of the night prevails, for the devils grope about in the dark when the sun has set till the darkness of the night prevails.”[9] Big snakes such as Anacondas and Pythons of Indonesia are not only famous for devouring livestock animals such as recently a video shows an anaconda in the Brazilian Amazon devouring an entire goat.[10] In fact a full grown human, a lady in Indonesia who went in to her cornfield at night got swallowed up by a python. Wa Tiba, 54, left her home on Muna island to visit her cornfield Thursday night. When she had not returned by sunrise, her sister went to the field to look for her. The villagers found the snake a few dozen yards from Tiba's belongings. It was 23 feet long and so bloated it could barely move. They killed the snake, cut open its skin and found Tiba inside the snake.[11] The devils, humans or jinn, may also affect our food and drink through their agents such as insects like roaches or rats and lizards that reside in impure places that may go around the house contaminating food and drink spreading diseases. There are chances of such happenings at night as the Prophet ﷻ said: “Cover your vessels, tie your water skins, extinguish your lamps and lock your doors, for satan does not untie a water skin, open a door or uncover a vessel. If a person cannot find anything but a piece of wood (as a lid) with which to cover his vessel and mention the Name of Allah, then let him do so. And the mouse could set fire to the house with its people inside.”[12] The Prophet ﷺ said to apply these safety measures inside homes before going to sleep as it protects its members from harm. Lack of such measures may cause some food to be contaminated such as the recent case of 15 members of a Pakistani family from city of Multan, becoming sick and one dead after lizard contaminated their food.[13] References: [1] Maghreb is sunset and one of the five times of a day in Islam. Other being Fajr (sunset), Dhuhr (early afternoon), Asr (late afternoon), and Isha (night time). [2] Tabarani & Bayhaqi - IslamAwareness.net n.d. [3] Jami Tirmidhi - Vol. 1, Book 2, Hadith 338 [4] Problematic hadiths and various questions - G. Haddad 2009 [5] Philips 2017 [6] Sunan Abi Dawud 3733 [7] Legends of the Fire Spirits - Lebling 2010 [8] 'Burn, kill, destroy': Parkland school shooter video released - Cardona 2018 [9] Sunan Abi Dawud 2604 [10] YouTube Anaconda Vomited Goat, Not Cow - Ghose 2012 [11] A woman went to check her corn — and was swallowed by a python - South China Morning Post. [12] Sunan ibn Majah - Vol. 4, Book 30, Hadith 3410 [13] 15 fall sick after eating lizard-infected food in Multan - APP 2019
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