Assalamualaikum and Peace be upon you!
Humility. The quality of being modest or humble. Lots of times, when we do acts of kindness or contribute to a good cause, we will feel happy and proud of our good deeds! And sometimes, when we saw others not doing or contributing as much, we may think badly of them while thinking highly of ourselves. And to add on further, we might even pretend to be humble by our 'actions' when secretly we want the whole world to know what we've done. Astaughfirullah....may Allah forgive us for our pride. It's an irony how good deeds can be the downfall of some men. Once they say that they are humble, they immediately contradict themselves. Humility; The only thing you lose once you claim you have it. Funny isn't it?
Humility is something I find very hard to grasp. I feel that the more I try to be humble, the more insincere my actions felt. Does that even make sense? Have you ever felt that way before? And not to mention, humility in intellectuality! Sometimes, the more knowledge we gain and the more we learn, the more highly we think of ourselves. The more we tend to argue about who's right about what. We think that just because we're more enlightened about a certain subject, the more license we have to critic others when they're wrong or when they're clueless. I believe this is an attitude that we all have to try our best to change. I have to remind myself day after day, that just because I learn something new in school today, doesn't immediately make me an expert on that subject! The field of knowledge is so vast that even if I can pen it all down, the ink made from the seven seas won't be sufficient. So learning a thing or 2 is basically just making a small, microscopic, nano-seized dent in the knowledge bank.
As Muslims, we are always reminded to stay humble in our deeds! Feeling proud of an ibadah that you've done immediately revoked its benefits and pahala. No matter how small or big your deed is, the sincerity is the one that counts. Always ask yourself, "Will I still be doing this if nobody knows about it?". I still remember the story about this one pious man. He was granted the ability to live for more than 500 years and he filled his days by worshipping Allah. Before he was granted access to paradise, Allah asked him, "Do you want to enter Jannah with my mercy or with your ibadah (prayers and deeds)?" Thinking that his 500 years worth of worship is more than sufficient to grant him access, he than ask for his deeds to be weight and for him to enter Paradise with it. Allah than compared his deeds with just the man's eye, a token of Allah's mercy and blessings. Lo and behold, even the gift of sight that Allah granted us from one eye is incomparable to 500 years of worship! Thus to the hellfire the man went for his pride, arrogance and lack of humility. May that never happen to us...
We should always, ALWAYS think that whatever it is we've done or attained, is never enough for us to think that we're better than the next guy. Truly, there is so much more good deeds, knowledge and worship that we can do and that it does not mean that we're better than someone else. If the prophets, those who are promised paradise, never stop prostrating, what about us mere individuals? Let's all strive to do better and improve ourselves! Throw away the feelings of pride and arrogance. Keep humility close at heart and In sya' Allah, we will even start treating others with more respect as well.
Until then, much peace and love!
