Disease of Kibr, The

The second characteristic that everyone has to be cautious of, but especially those people who are studying the 'ilm, who have been given by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, who have been blessed by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to have knowledge and to be making da'wah, these people have to be very careful about a disease that comes to people of this nature many times, unfortunately, and this is the disease of kibr, of arrogance and pride. And sometimes the way this is reflected is where the person refuses and does not want anyone to correct him, or at least he will not accept correction from certain people. Ya'ni he may accept correction or be told that he is wrong by someone who is from his group, someone who is a close friend of his, but anybody else, he will look down upon anyone else, and he will not accept any kind of criticism from anybody else, and this is kibr. This is pride and arrogance, as described in the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam. The Prophet sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam said that no one who has even a mustard grain seed weight of kibr in his heart, no one who has this in his heart will enter Jannah.

Someone asked the Prophet sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam, he said that a man loves to have nice clothing on, put nice shoes and he understood this is maybe kibr; the Prophet sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam said, "Allah is beautiful and loves beauty," ya'ni this is not kibr, but kibr is "to reject the truth and to look down upon the people", to reject the truth for example when it comes to you from the source you do not like, when it comes to you from someone perhaps who is not as much upon the right path as you think you are, and to look down upon other people and to disgrace them, this is kibr.

You have to realize that, I don't care if you are the biggest 'alim in the world, you could make a mistake sometimes, that some child could come up to you and say, you know, that was a mistake. Al-Bukhari was just 11 or 12 years old the first time he corrected his shaykh.

This is something that we have to be very careful about especially as I said when we are involved in da'wah and in giving knowledge. Because it is really when one gets knowledge that he feels, who are you to talk to me, ... don't talk to me, you have a problem with me ..., go talk to the ulama', and have the ulama' come and talk to me. This is a problem, and it is very dangerous unfortunately.

(s) Short transcription from a lecture on tape

pride & arrogance