Excerpt from Ml Sulaiman Jhanjhee رحمة الله عليه's speeches and notes.

We have three enemies: (1) Satan, (2) Ego (nafs) and (3) Bad habits

Ego is the architect; it’s more senior than Satan himself in instructing evil.

“…for indeed the inner self (nafsa) is ever inclined to evil” (12:53)

One day I asked Ml Inamul Hasan Kandhlawi رحمة الله عليه.

“Satan deceives everyone but who deceived Satan?”

In heaven, there were angels. There wasn’t any other devil there to deceive Satan.

Ml Inamul Hasan رحمة الله عليه replied, “It was his own ego (nafs) that deceived him.”

While living in heaven, his focus shifted from Allah towards himself.

Instead of praising Allah, he started praising himself.

He started to think of himself, ‘I am great.’

All of us have this enemy within ourselves, the ego (nafs).