Kibr & Ujub. Arrogance & Self-Admiration

The most dangerous aspect of these diseases is that the person who has them almost never sees them in themselves. Shaytan used precisely this disease, self-admiration, to refuse the command of Allah. It is the disease that destroyed the first of the arrogant. And it remains the most subtly hidden of all heart diseases.

Kibr and Ujub are diseases that are caused by a person's own knowledge, worship, wealth, beauty, or some other quality, and the person thinking of it as their own personal achievement. That is the root. From that root, both Kibr and Ujub grow. Understanding the difference between them is the beginning of recognising which one you may have.

Kibr means arrogance. In practical terms it is the state of looking down on other people, considering them inferior, treating them with contempt, and feeling that they are below you.

The hadith gives two specific signs that identify Kibr when it is present:

The second sign is particularly important: an arrogant person dismisses people AND dismisses the truth when it comes through people they consider beneath them. They do not accept counsel, do not acknowledge correction, and fight against right because accepting it would require humility they do not have.

This is not a vague warning about being unkind. It is a specific statement about a specific quantity, the smallest measurable amount. Even that much Kibr is a barrier. The scholars emphasise this not to make people despair, but to convey how seriously Islam treats this disease and how urgently it needs to be addressed.

Kibr is the disease that makes a person unfit for Tawbah, because Kibr and the humility that Tawadu requires cannot coexist. Allah gives dignity and honour to those who are humble and lowly before Him. The arrogant person has closed the very door that Tazkiyah opens.

Ujub means self-admiration, being impressed by yourself. It is the state of considering your own knowledge, worship, wealth, beauty, eloquence, or any other quality as your own personal achievement, rather than as a gift from Allah.

Unlike Kibr, Ujub does not necessarily involve looking down on anyone else. A person can have Ujub while treating others with perfectly good manners, the disease is entirely self-directed. They simply think highly of themselves and their qualities. That is enough for it to be Ujub.

The source of Ujub is always one of the person's own qualities. The disease arises when that quality is attributed to the person themselves, their own intelligence, their own worship, their own discipline, rather than to Allah who gave it to them. The moment something good about a person is credited to the person rather than to Allah, Ujub has entered.

Ujub is particularly common among people engaged in worship and religious practice, because their qualities are specifically religious ones: knowledge, devotion, consistency in prayer, recitation of Quran. These are genuinely good things. But if the nafs begins to take credit for them, I have such strong knowledge, I pray so consistently, I have such a good character, the good deed has become a vehicle for a bad trait.

These three diseases are often confused because they can appear together, but they are distinct, and understanding the distinction helps with diagnosis.

Riya, which has its own dedicated page, is always present with Kibr, because both together make a person act for people. But Ujub is separate from Riya, a person can have Ujub without showing off. Their self-admiration is private. And Kibr does not require Riya, the arrogant person may have no interest in people's praise; they simply look down on people regardless of whether anyone is watching.

Hakim ul Ummat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi رحمة الله عليه gives a detailed cure for Kibr in Kimalat Ashrafiya, six thoughts to keep consistently in mind that directly undercut the basis on which arrogance stands.

Kibr is built on the belief that one's qualities make one superior to others. Each of these six thoughts dismantles a different part of that belief:

The scholars, the people of taqwa, make Istighfar after their good deeds precisely because of this. They know that Allah's true greatness cannot be adequately worshipped even by the arrifeen, and so even after the best of their deeds they make Istighfar. This is tawadu, and it is the direct opposite of Kibr.

A question naturally arises: if Allah gives a person some excellence and they notice it, is thinking well of it itself Ujub? Is the mere awareness of a good quality a disease?

The answer depends entirely on how you relate to the quality. The problem is not noticing the quality, the problem is how you attribute it.

The cure for Ujub is therefore: when you notice a good quality in yourself, immediately attribute it to Allah, this is from His generosity, not from me, and let that attribution produce Shukar and Khauf rather than pride. Be grateful that He gave it. Be fearful that He may take it. The quality should make you more humble, not less.

This is why the arrifeen, the scholars who knew Allah, would fear their good deeds more than others fear their bad deeds. They knew that Allah's true greatness is such that even the best worship falls short of what He deserves. And this awareness kept them from Ujub regardless of how much Allah had given them.

There is a specific warning for those who have begun the path of Tazkiyah, the salikeen, the seekers. It is about one of Shaytan's most effective tactics against them.

This is Kibr and Ujub working directly against the Tazkiyah process itself. The nafs, threatened by the process of being humbled and reformed, uses arrogance as a defence: who is this Shaykh to tell me what to do, I know better, I can see his flaws. And the moment this thought takes hold, the seeker is cut off from the very thing that was reforming them.

The protection is simple to describe and difficult to maintain: keep the nafs low. Recognise that the objections the nafs produces against the guide are almost always self-serving, the nafs does not want to be reformed, so it manufactures reasons to dismiss the person doing the reforming. Seeing this pattern clearly, for what it is, is the protection against it.