Vanity – the vicious circle of PRIDE that your life is wrapped with

The system that clogged you

I know you are stuck.
Life is not going anywhere.
You want to straighten your life.
You’re tired of the system.
You realised that you are the victim of the system, a vicious cycle is all around your life.
You can’t penetrate a way out.
You feel choked, helpless, there’s no way out.

Your emotions make you feel like you are in the driving force of your life,
but in reality, you know that you handed over your life to the systems a long time ago.
It’s not you who is in control of your life, it’s the system that got hold of you.
You are just a raw material in the system to produce whatever it intends to produce by using you.
The system treats you simply as one of the ingredients.
That’s a degradation to your human value.
That’s an insult to your human dignity.

Defining the System

So, what’s the system that you are trapped in?
For many, it is success after success, achieving milestone after milestone.
Have you ever thought, what motivates you to go after the ‘success’ that you believe in?
It’s the PRIDE, status and prestige that is offered by that ‘success’.
And the irony of the fact that it is ‘they’ who designed ‘it’, as to what you think is ‘success’ to you.
It is ‘they’ who gave you a standard of what you call ‘success’ and what you call ‘failure’
It is ‘they’ who structured all the institutions in their mission to use you as the product in their ‘manufacturing plants’
It is ‘they’ who designed all the processes to build the aspiration of that ‘success’ in you.
And then it is ‘they’ who finally shaped your mind to make you believe that it is ‘your’ success while you are nothing but a pawn in their master plan.
Therefore, let me define where these come from. Let’s get to the source of your pride.

Pride was the crime of shaitan.

Pride was the crime that made shaitan to be arrogant to disobey his creator.
Pride was the crime that made him do kufr.
Therefore he knew, this is the thing, pride, the mother of all diseases, “I am better.”

[ Allah ] said,
“What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?” [Satan] said, “I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay.”
Al-Quranul Kareem 7:12

Obviously shaitan just needed to plant only one thing in the human’s heart to confirm his Jahannam. (Naujubilllah)
And you can see how shaitan not only has successfully managed to implant the pride in the heart of his ‘children among human’ but he made the pride look like as a normal and acceptable social thing to them.
And SubhanAllah, Aujubillah! shaitan helped them to cover these pride in the disguise of sweet terms like ‘smart’, ‘handsome’, ‘strong personality’ and so on.

Pride – the disease that the society is wrapped with:

As a result, pride is the thing that society is weaved in.
Pride is the thing that runs the education system.
Pride is the thing that runs the businesses today.
Pride is the thing that the economy is based on today.
Look at any advertisements of products like daily necessities, let alone those which bring luxury and comfort. Look how they target and push people to be prideful.

Can you imagine how many wraps shaitan has wrapped his subjects with?
It’s multiple layers of wrap that you’re trapped in.
The wrap of ‘Making your Mark!’ and ‘Leaving a legacy!’
The wrap of dignity and respect in society’s eyes!
The wrap of maintaining a luxury status.
The wrap of pour down of social obligations on you!
The wrap of entertainment and sport that encompasses the entire human being which you can’t escape!
Pride is what you wrapped your life with from personal life to family, profession, social, state and whatnot.
Let’s now point out the wrap of shaitan you are involved in and have taken as a normal thing.

Pride in Personal Life:

Pride is how you sit on a couch.
Pride is the way you glance at the people lower to you.
Pride is how you walk.
Pride is your feeling of inferiority to make a call first.
Pride is your feeling of inferiority to show up among the successful ones.

“And the one of the three who will be severely punished is the poor person with Pride”
Saheeh Muslim

Pride is you burst out in anger when a security officer stops you to check your bag at the exit.
Pride is the insult in your face when an officer of lower status stops you to check your ID.
Pride is the insult in your face because nobody is there to welcome you upon arrival.
Pride is “how dare you keep me waiting in the queue?”
Pride is “how dare you do not recognize who I am?”
Pride is you have to have a say in anything and everything.
Pride is you have to let others know/show off that you knew it too while somebody else gets the chance to deliver his knowledge.
Pride is “How come somebody didn’t recognize/appreciate my good deeds?”
Pride is, someone of equal or lower status advising you!
Pride is when you can’t take advice from others.

Pride in Professional Life:

Your job is a pride, measuring who you are, what respect you deserve from society.
You achieve a degree is a pride to you.
You got your degree from such and such university is a pride to you.
Your professional title hanging with your name is a pride to you.
Hanging a tag of the org you work for is a pride to you. (Though the org sometimes makes you do that)
Achieving recognition of your work from a higher authority is a pride to you.
You are doing a job at a multinational is a pride to you.
Your unuttered words to your competitor, “I am not good just in ONE thing! I maintain a life like you, still, I am the BEST in many things!”
You bring your office stuff to work at home so that you can prove your skill, ‘I am better’, which is driven by nothing but pride.
You showcase all your prizes and trophies is a pride to you.
A subordinate of yours gives a solution to your boss and it makes your jaw tight, that is a pride to you.
You make subordinates stand for you, that’s pride you’re wrapped with.
You expect your assistant to stand for you, that is a pride to you.
You receive a salute from an arm guard, that is a pride to you.
Pride is how you talk with your subordinates while keeping your jaw clenched.
Pride is how dare your subordinate have a say above you.
Pride is, “I am the tiger over my subordinates but I become the dog under my boss”
Pride is you don’t let anything go without having your nose in it.
Pride is how many countries you visit for training or official purposes.

Pride in Social Life:

You buy the latest new car, that is a pride to you.
Your driver opening the door for you is a pride to you.
Pride is the decorations you decorate your living room with.
Pride is what you have shelved in your cupboards of utensils and clothes.
Pride is the brands that is displayed on your possessions
Pride is what brand of baby cot you buy for your baby.
Pride is which school you admit your child to.
Pride is which super mall or which country you went to do your shopping.
And pride is what glitters in your dressing room, in your ornaments.
Pride is how many dishes you can decorate your dining table with.
Pride is how many celebrities or the leaders or the social-heads accept and join your invitations.
And did you get an invitation?
La Hawla Wa La Quwata Illa Billah!
That’s the ultimate manifestation of your pride,
A disaster that you embrace wholeheartedly.
Pride is when you take a photo with powerful people.
Pride is the hot connections you have with these powerful people.
Pride is which family you belong to.
Pride is how many places you visit.
You reside in such and such land is a pride to you.
You are invited to the Prime Minister’s office is a pride to you.
You sit in a reserved seat in a conference is a pride to you.
You eat in a certain restaurant is a pride to you.
You eat using a spoon is a pride for you (as they introduced it to differentiate themselves as the elite from the rest)
Pride is which hospital or which country you take your sick to. SubhanAllah!
Pride is, it is a disaster you have to go out in the rain with a broken umbrella.

Pride is in your Tribal alignment, today you call it ‘National Pride’:

What’s the greatest corruption of the human heart which is not only made legal but manifests as pride in the heart of a human child?
It is what and how they put the seed of the disease of ‘National Pride’ in your heart in schools.
And how many things they have invented to increase this disease as you keep growing from childhood to adulthood?
And then, how many ways they nurse this pride to ‘blind-fold’ you from understanding the right from wrong?

So, your ‘National Anthem’, such a seed of the pride they imprint in your heart while they make you love it.
And this disease makes you so blind that you don’t realise the ridiculousness of the matter when they even give you a ‘National Bird’!
They don’t stop there but make you keep increasing the disease, so they give you a ‘National Monument’ and you fill your heart with the pride.
And what about the flag they make you love more than your life!
And what about the sport through which they keep renewing your ‘National Pride’!
And that’s how the ‘children of shaitan’ continuously sharpen this disease of ‘Nationalism’ so much in your heart,
So much so that you love your nationality more dearly over your Deen, over the love for Allah and his Rasul and over the love for your Muslim brother!

Pride in the Act of Deen:

And do you think that’s enough of the pride that is embedded in the society?
Then what about those engaged in religious matters?
Shaitan didn’t have to exhort much effort to wrap them any less than others.
Look at the pride of those who engage in Dawah work, build Masjids, organise charity work, and those who are involved in the Masjid committee.
Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Raji’un.
Even going to Hajj became a symbol of pride.
And I don’t have the words to describe the insanity in Qurbani, on Eid-ul-Adha. La Hawla Wa La Quwata Illa Billah.
It’s a disaster my ‘Udhiya’ (Cow/or whatever) is not the highest priced ones in the neighbourhood.
Even your child’s Quran education become an issue of chasing a certificate and being a star.
How big of a scholar you are, its deciding factors are your university, and how many Sheikhs you learned under. SubhanAllah!

So! what are you thinking now!

These are just the surface of the pride your life is wrapped with.
There’s no escape from it.
This society you belong to, weaved in pride, prestige and status.
And you are running during the day and during the night, not only to feed your stomach but to earn prestige and pride in the eyes of the society.
From the birth of a baby to the deceased to the grave, it is the pride that all aspects of your entire life are weaved with.
Most of the people are doing Islam today while they are wrapped in the pride that shaitan made it look like a normal thing.

So, O my brothers, undo this pride from yourself, from your family.
Detach yourself from the system based on pride.
Do not dare to die with even a single of these prides, the result of which is an ultimate disaster, Jahannam! (Naujubillah)
Slap on the face of this society which embeds your entire life with pride.
Slap on the face of the masterminds who is using you as their ‘ingredients’ in their ‘manufacturing plant’.
Undo these issues which you do in order to earn prestige and pride.
Undo it.
Right now!
Right today!

Know the consequences:

And clearly these are not the things that you call Islamic.
Being a Muslim you can’t let these things bring pride in you.
Because being Muslim means Jannah.
But those things that bring pride in you, are not the things of Jannah!

(1) And your Rabb says,
“And turn not your face away from men with pride, nor walk in insolence through the earth. Verily, Allah likes not each arrogant boaster.
Luqman (31:18)

Rasulullah Salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam said,

(2) “Allah Almighty says: Grandeur is my outer garment and greatness is my garment. Whoever competes with me in one these two, I will throw him into the Hellfire.”
(Sunan Ibn Mājah 4175 Sahih (authentic) according to Al-Albani)

(3) “Whosoever likes people to stand up for him should take his abode in the Fire (of Hell).”
(Sunan Abu Dawud, No. 5186, Sunan Tirmidhi, No. 5067 & Musnad Ahmad)

(4) “While a man was walking in a fine garment, with his HAIR groomed and impressed with himself, Allah caused the earth to swallow him. He will be buried until the Day of Resurrection.”
(Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5452, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2088)

(5) “A man before you left his house wearing two green (special) shawl, BOASTING in them. Allah commanded the earth to take him. Verily, he will be buried in it until the Day of Resurrection.”
(Musnad Aḥmad 11141 Sahih (authentic) according to Al-Arna’ut)

(6) “Verily, Allah Almighty does not accept the prayer of a man who trails his garment in pride.”
(Sunan Abī Dāwūd 638 Sahih (authentic) according to Al-Nawawi)

(7) “A man continues to exalt himself until he is recorded among the tyrants. He will be punished as they are punished.”
(Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2000 Hasan)

(8) “Allah, Most High, has removed from you the pride of the pre-Islamic period (Jahiliyya) and its boasting in ancestors.
One is only a pious believer or a miserable sinner.
You are sons of Adam, and Adam came from dust.
Let the people cease to boast about their ancestors. They are merely fuel in Jahannam;
or they will certainly be of less account with Allah than the beetle which rolls dung with its nose.”
(Sunan Abu Daud 5116.)

(9) “If anyone wants to have his deeds widely publicised, Allah will publicise (his humiliation). And if anyone makes a hypocritical display (of his deeds) Allah will make a display of him.”
(Saheeh Muslim 7476/2986)
Naujubillah! May Allah save us from pride.

UNDO it, slap on it:

You need to work that much to feed your stomach.
You need only that much education from this society which prepares you for a skill to earn that much food.
And then you need to engage yourself with your Rabb.
Engage yourself in seeking knowledge of your Rabb.

This education system they set for your forefathers was to take you out of Islam.
You see, you are born in a Muslim family and you call yourself a Muslim.
You have no less faith in your heart.
But the day you went to school, your parents put you on the path of Jahannam. (Naujubillah)
The school doesn’t allow you any time for your Deen.
They keep you busy teaching you the things you would never need in your life.
They organised the school schedule in a way that you don’t get time for your Deen.
Don’t you see, after going to school, the first thing you dropped from Deen was your Salah?
This Salah is the first case that will be brought into the court to judge you.

Think of this, whatever your parents did with you, you are doing the same thing with your children.
If you have a 17 year old child today, you tell me, how many Rakat of Salah was due from him since his adulthood (puberty)?
If he were to die today, what would be his destination?
Do you have a guarantee that he will not die the next day in an accident or whatever way Allah set his Qadr? (May Allah protect him and guide him)
How would your love benefit him if you are causing him to go to Jahannam? (Naujubillah)
Isn’t Allah’s warning true?

On the other hand, if you put him in a Madrasah, even if he does a PhD study, would he ever drop one Waqt of Salah even on the day he has an exam?
But when you put him in this school system, the first thing he drops is his Salah.
That’s what the school system was designed for, to take Muslims out of Islam.
And then through this school system, they were able to sow the seed of pride by setting the grades, certificates which made the entire society become embedded in pride without you noticing it.
What do you think is the source of this pride in every aspect of a human being?
Don’t you see how this school made your life unliveable?
Did shaitan go to vacation after he used his ‘children among human’ to design the simple school system 200 years back?
shaitan increases his strategy day by day and you can see what the school system became now in just 5/6 generations.
Parents attempt to suicide because of the pressure of school systems imposed on them.
Stop this race of going to this school or that school.
Slap on the face of the pride that society pushed on you.
Undo it.
Right now!
Right today!

And make dua, “Allahumma inni aujubika min Sueel Kibr”.
meaning, “O Allah, save me from the evil of pride.”

And Allah knows best.