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Is Satan able to move things, and if so, how is the hadith to be understood in which Satan whispers to the mouse to overturn the lamp, and why does Satan not do this work alone?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The noble Hadith indicates that Satan cannot untie a waterskin, open a closed door, or uncover a vessel if the name of Allah is mentioned over them. Instead, he resorts to using a mouse to start a fire. Imam An-Nawawi clarified that these measures are for safety from the harm of Satan, and that mentioning the name of Allah in these instances prevents Satan from gaining control.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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