ARROGANCE

All praise to Almighty Allah. We praise Him, seek His help and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from evils within our souls and harms of our deeds. Whomever Allah guides, none can misguide. And whomever He sends astray, none can guide. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah alone with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad (pbuh) is His Messenger.

Arrogance is a disease of the heart; it makes one feel superior over others, and leads one to destruction. One who lacks humbleness and humility is cursed by Allah and prevented from entering paradise on the Day of Judgment. Allah subhaanah gave us example of Fir’awn and of those whom were destroyed due to their arrogance nature, for indeed Allah hates an arrogant person. 

…….Verily, Allah does not like such as are proud and boastful. Q3: 36

According to Sahih Muslim, arrogance means “to reject the truth and look down on people”. No one rejects truth and still hold on to falsehood after the truth has been made clear other than an arrogant person, Allah dislikes them.

Allah humiliates and disgraces the boastful people, and Allah warns us to avoid such attitude, He gives us as parable from the Quran when the Angels were ordered to bow down to Adam (AS), Iblis refused and said “I am better than him, you created me from fire and created him from clay”, Allah said, “Descend from Paradise, for it is not for you to be arrogant therein. So get out; indeed, you are of the debased. Q7: 11-12.

So Iblis was cursed by Allah and faced his fate for his arrogance and feeling of superiority.

The Prophet (pbuh) said, “No one who has an atom’s weight of pride/arrogance will enter into Jannah (paradise)”. (Sahih Muslim).

This means paradise is forbidden for an arrogant person, and then what is the benefit of arrogance in the life of a man who lives today and dies tomorrow. Ibn Taymiya (RA) says, “How can a person who passes from the passage of urine twice have arrogance in his heart.”

Pride and boastfulness is an attribute which only befit The Creator (Allah) and not for the creation, for Allah alone owns the dominion of the heavens and the earths and unquestionable for anything He does.

There are cures for arrogance, and by which one heart can be free from pride. We should strengthen our relationship with Allah by obeying Him and pleasing Him with deeds which are obligatory and voluntary, we should perceive the knowledge of our purpose in life and realize that we are nothing but a collection of decreasing days which will soon come to an end.

Today we take pride in having wealth, health, education and luxuries in life, look down upon others and tomorrow we are nowhere to be found, the people of honor and contempt, people of arrogance and humbleness of yesterday are nowhere today but in the their various graves, and the question we should ask ourselves is that “of what benefit is my arrogance and pride on the surface of this earth?, does it really worth it?”, because whether we like it or not, we will be nowhere other than the grave soon, so let’s be humble and let’s live this life like a visitor.

Let’s be grateful to Allah for everything, and not to become arrogant, boastful and not forget that Allah is the One bestowing all favors upon us. There are many people more favored than we are but are very humble, and this tells us our arrogance and pride are of no worth.

 Allah says, “Then which of the favors of your Lord will you deny.” Q55: 13.
We pray to Allah to protect us from such a disease of the heart and make us be among the humble servants.

Abdullah Khan.