acts of worship should also be treated by means of hope for God. On the other side, the sinful tyrants who are plunging in acts of disobedience to God and are deceived by false hope should be treated by means of fear of God as well as severe reproach and painful punishment.
DECEPTION
Deception means to be deceived by a devilish trickery or a wrong idea, such as spending the usurped property in fields of charity. It causes many people to believe in the validity of their acts, but if they examine them precisely, they will understand that their deeds were only delusion. Thus, deception is the most dangerous snare, weapon, and trickery of the Devil.
There are however different forms of deception varying according to the trends of the deluded individuals. Some people are deluded by the charming pleasures of this world and others are deluded by knowledge, leadership, wealth, worship, and the like.
Forms of Deception
Worldly Deception
Faithless individuals are mostly deceived by the false charms of this world. They neglect the inevitable termination of this world and forget that there is an endless life to come; therefore, they put two inaccurate reasons as the justification of their being deceived by this world:
FIRST, they claim that this world is cash while the life to come is credit.
SECOND, they claim that the pleasures of this world are certain, while the pleasures of the world to come are uncertain.
This is in fact a big mistake. Regarding the first claim, it is true that cash is better than credit if they are equal in the measurement of benefit. But when the credit is preponderant to the cash, it becomes preferable. This is