101. This does not mean that one should merely repeat the Arabic words: I seek Allah’s refuge against the accursed Satan. It means that one should have a sincere desire and do his utmost to guard against Satan’s evil suggestions when one is reciting the Holy Quran and should not allow wrong and irrelevant doubts and suspicions to enter his mind. One should try to see everything contained in the Quran in its true light, and refrain from mixing it up with his self invented theories or ideas foreign to the Quran so as to construe its meaning against the will of Allah. Moreover, one should feel that the most sinister and avowed design of Satan is that the reader should not obtain any guidance from the Quran. This is why Satan tries his utmost to delude the reader and pervert him from getting guidance from it, and mislead him into wrong ways of thinking. Therefore, the reader should be fully on his guard against Satan and seek Allah’s refuge for help so that Satan should not be able to deprive him of the benefits froth this source of guidance, for one who fails to get guidance from this source, will never be able to get guidance from anywhere else. Above all, the one who seeks to obtain deviation from this Book is so entangled in deviation that he can never get out of this vicious circle.
The context in which this verse occurs here is to serve as an introduction to the answers to the questions which the mushriks of Makkah were raising against the Quran. They have been warned that they could appreciate the blessing of the Quran only if they would try to see it in its true light by seeking Allah’s protection against Satan’s misleading suggestions, and not by raising objections against it. Otherwise Satan does not let a man understand the Quran and its teachings.