protect oneself from bad thoughts

Imām Ibn Al-Qayyim (may Allāh have mercy on him) said:

 

Then if you were to ask: what way can [a person] keep [himself] safe [from bad or evil thoughts]?

 

I would say: there are a number of ways.

 

1st of them is [to] know with certainty that the Lord, High is He above all, has complete knowledge and awareness [of all things], sees into your heart, and knows every detail of your thoughts.

 

2nd is your having a sense of shame and shyness before Him [that holds you back from unseemly things].

 

3rd is your treating Him with the utmost reverence, out of knowing Him and loving Him, from having to see the like of those [bad] thoughts in a house of His that He [Himself] created.

 

4th is your fear of Him, that you would be seen as lower in His eyes for having [engaged] in those bad thoughts.

 

5th is your preferring Him to having anything other than love for Him occupying your heart.

 

6th is your fear that those thoughts might give birth to others and that their sparks might catch fire and consume whatever is in the heart of īmān [faith] and love of Allāh, annihilating them completely without you [even] sensing it.

 

7th is your knowing that those thoughts are [essentially like] the seed that is tossed to a bird in order to catch it. Know that every one of those [bad] thoughts is a seed in a trap that’s been set up to catch you while you’re not aware.

 

8th is your knowing that those bad thoughts don’t, in the first place, [ever] come together with thoughts of belief and faith [or thoughts] that give rise to love [of Allāh] and turning back [to Him] in repentance. Rather, [bad thoughts] are the very opposite of [these good thoughts] in every way.

The two never occur together in a heart without one overcoming the other, expelling it, and taking over its place.

So what’s to be thought of a heart in which the [bad] thoughts [that stem from one’s own] soul and from the devil have overcome the thoughts of belief, faith, love [of Allāh], and knowing [the truth], expelling them thereafter and taking over their place?

But if that heart had had some life in it, it would most certainly have perceived the pain of that [when it was happening] and felt its grievous affliction.

 

9th is that you know that those [bad, intrusive] thoughts are a sea from the seas of imagination—[and] it has no coast. If the heart were to then go into its immense waters, it would become submerged in them and lose its way under its layers of darkness; then it would try to find a way out, [a way to get rescued], but it would not be able find any way. So a heart possessed by [bad] thoughts is far from achieving success, ever in torment, ever preoccupied with things that are of no benefit.

 

10th is that those thoughts are the Valley of Fools and the Longings of the Unlearned: they don’t bear any fruit for anyone who possess them other than regret and disgrace. When they take over a heart, they spawn bad whisperings within it; depose it of its authority and control; draw ruin upon it through its own subjects; and cast it into a long captivity.

 

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Source: Ṭarīq Al-Hijratain, p. 377-79. Dār ʿĀlam Al-Fawāʾid.