Kibr (Arrogance)

Arrogance (Kibr) is an issue that has to do with the manners of a person.

The danger of Kibr, Whoever has an atom of Kibr in his heart, cannot enter heaven.

Before I get into Kibr I’ll like to define it using two different ways.

1) Using a clear Hadith that states the meaning. The Prophet (S) described arrogance as: "suppression of the truth and looking down on people”. So if you look down upon anyone, for any reason, you have some arrogance in you. Also if you reject the truth from someone because you don’t trust him or find him to not follow it himself, even though you know it’s the truth, you also have some Kibr in you.

a) Looking down upon people

If we look down upon anyone for any reason we have some Kibr in us. Now we all most likely feel that we don’t have Kibr in us, so I’m going to try to prove that this is harder than it sounds. Please open your hearts and think if any of this applies to you.

How may of us think of different people in different cultures certain ways. How may of us look down among a group of people in an unfair way. Now this is hard because we live in a world where we should make fun of each other’s cultures instead of accepting them. We are in a world where we are honestly trained to fear people of certain races. My point is, if someone asked you for directions in the street, how many of us would honestly treat the person asking us the same whether he was black, white, Hispanic, or Arab? We live in a world that trained us to think of certain people as certain ways. We live a world that teaching us people we dress nice are smart and wise, while people who dress not so nice are dumb and stupid. We live a world that a person that is into reading is weird, and a person into cars is cool. So when we see someone not dressed so nice, our instinct is to think less of him compared to others, and if we see someone in a suit our instinct is to trust the person. This may lead us into Kibr if we aren’t all ready there, EVERYONE ON THIS EARTH WAS CREATED BY ALLAH (swt), AND ALLAH PUT THEM IN THEIR PLACE WHETHER BLACK OR WHITE, and RICH OR POOR. I’m not asking that we should stop acting different around different people, I’m asking that we STOP seeing color and rank, all we see is a creation like ourselves. If they are wrong we help them, if they are right we follow them, but we never feel better than them. This is like satan.

b) Not accepting the truth.

This one is also hard in itself. Lets look deep inside ourselves, deep inside. Would we accept the truth from whoever gives it to us? A major sign of this Kibr is if a friend comes to you and tries to tell you your doing something harram, and instead of listening to him you start telling him things he as done in the past. For example, I’m chatting online with a girl, and my friend tells me that’s harram, I know it harram and I know hes right, but all I say is, no you talked to so and so at so and so time. That’s a sign of Kibr, when you judge someone else in order to not accept what he is saying. It is like When Musa (AS) went to the pharaoh and told him to worship One God, the first thing pharaoh starting doing was reminding Musa of the favors of raising him, then he reminded Musa about killing someone. Don’t do what Pharaoh did.

2) Other forms of Kibr.

a) Bragging about ourselves. If you do a sin, they talk about it in a proud matter, not only is that Kibr, but the talking about the sin is worse than the sin itself.

b) thinking that you can do anything w/o Allah’s help, or that anything came from you.

c) Openly not caring that you are doing a sin, even when others have warned you.

Sit and Dua

2) Using Allah’s Name to define it, AL-Mutakabbir-The Proud.

This name Al-Mutakabbir is the One who regards everything as unworthy of consideration in relation to Him, who sees greatness and majesty only in regard to Him. This is one of the names of Allah, and Allah has reserved this name for Himself. To truly know this name means you understand your place in creation. AS NOTHING, we are nothing compared to Allah’s creation, we can’t even begin to compare ourselves to the stars, planets, orbits, sun, moon, or anything else.

How to get rid of Kibr

1) Now to get rid of our Kibr, think of Allah’s (swt) creation, and you will know how we really are nothing. Surah Insan, Ayah 1.

3) Act like those who are humble, even if its not in you.

4) Never put anyone down for any reason. Don’t even give them funny looks.

5) Don’t backbite, backbiting is the door to Kibr. Just woory about yourself

6) The more you are at the service of people, the more Kibr will leave your heart.

Lastly, I like to end with this quote.

“ Don’t raise you price, or Allah will send you back to what your worth.”