This book contains between its covers a collection of weapons with which Divine Providence armed us before we were sent to Earth. They were our luminous preparation granted by God, through which He revealed to us the plans of Iblis, his tricks, his hidden schemes, and the traps by which he hunts hearts and leads seekers astray.
When we come to know his most famous tricks and realize the weapons God has bestowed upon us to confront him, we become able to deal with him as God—Glorious and Exalted—has commanded: “Indeed, Satan is an enemy to you, so take him as an enemy.”

The greatest problem in this ongoing battle that never subsides does not lie in the strength of the enemy, nor in the weakness of our weapons, but rather in our ignorance of his plans and our heedlessness of the weapons we possess. When we learn this and become aware of its reality, the stages of the journey to God begin.

The beginning is with awakening, from which the heart shines and comprehends the reality of the greatest weapon, which is the crown of the believers’ weapons, indeed their origin and greatest of all: the weapon of repentance. This weapon was the first thing Adam received from his Lord; it was the key to the path and the first of the gates of mercy to be opened. Through it, a person preserves his place within God’s protection. Whenever he slips from this station through sin, he returns again through repentance, for repentance frustrates the plans of Iblis.

Thereafter, the stages of the path follow in succession, and its springs and secrets burst forth as one passes through other stages by which he ascends, such as: turning back, contemplation, remembrance, holding fast, fleeing, and spiritual discipline, until we reach the greatest stage and the most exalted rank, which is listening…
Listening to the language of heaven and coming to know God. This is the essence of worship and its ultimate purpose, as the Exalted says: “I did not create jinn and mankind except to worship Me.”

Worship is only a means to knowing God, and one errs who treats it as an end in itself. Rather, it is a means to knowing God.
God created us and made us bear witness against ourselves that He is our Lord. Our journey in this world is a journey to know God through the beauty of His Names and Attributes. Acts of worship are a means to reach the supreme goal, which is knowing God. That is the paradise of the seekers in this world; they find intimacy in it along the path to God. When we know Him, we long to meet Him, and He bestows upon us the blessing of death and transition to Him, to delight in gazing upon His Noble Face.

Thus, God did not create us to worship Him with mere acts of worship—such as prayer, almsgiving, and others—but He created us to make good use of these acts as a means to knowing Him, finding intimacy with Him, and drawing near to Him, in preparation for the path of return to Him and to His Paradise. For we are from Him, a breath of His Spirit, and a branch does not settle except by returning to its origin.

This book is divided into two parts:

• The first discusses preparing the heart to ascend through the stages of the journey to God. This preparation occurs by uncovering the tricks of Iblis and lifting the veil from the weapons with which those journeying to God arm themselves to combat those wicked tricks. Through this profound unveiling of the battle and the luminous, armed preparation God has granted us, most events in the first part take the form of fierce battles between Satan and the heart, and an explanation of the weapons used therein. Thus, the first part of the book concludes.
• Then, the heart begins to transform from being scattered and lost into a heart armed with light, capable of uncovering tricks and events. A person’s sole concern becomes correcting the crookedness of his own soul, purifying it, cultivating it, and cleansing his heart. All his battles are for this purification and refinement. Thus, the stages of the journey to God begin in order to know Him, and knowing Him is only through listening and mastering the interpretation of the language of heaven and the logic of its tongue. In this way, the journey of this book comes to an end, and we meet again on other journeys, God willing.