The Prophet (sal Allāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) said,
((لَا يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ مَنْ كَانَ فِي قَلْبِهِ مِثْقَالُ ذَرَّةٍ مِنْ كِبْرٍ…الْكِبْرُ بَطَرُ الْحَقِّ وَغَمْطُ النَّاسِ))
Whoever has an atom’s weight of arrogance in his heart, will not enter Paradise… Arrogance is rejecting the truth and belittling people.
(Narrator Ibn Mas’ud, in Sahih Muslim)
Commentary:
- When the Prophet (sal Allāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) informed the companions that a person who has even the smallest amount of pride in his heart will not enter paradise, they remarked: ‘What if a man likes his clothes to look nice and his shoes to look nice?’. He replied to them, ‘verily Allāh is beautiful and loves beauty; arrogance means rejecting the truth and belittling people.’
- The above narration shows us that Islām does not forbid taking pride in one’s clothing and appearance, rather it is being too arrogant to accept the truth and belittling other people that is rebuked
- The meaning of this Ḥadīth is that one who has arrogance and pride in his heart, will not enter into Paradise without the possibility of being exposed to punishment. The intended meaning of the Ḥadīth is not that such a person will never enter Paradise, as that is dependant upon a person accepting or rejecting Tawḥīd.
- Pride and arrogance was the first sin committed; it was due to arrogance that Iblis refused to prostrate in front of Ādam (‘alayhi as-salām), and it was the same reason why Pharaoh suppressed his people.