A summary of the concepts held by the Ahl al-Sunnah.
Protection against self-admiration and its remedy.
Self-admiration is a hidden ailment that may stealthily infiltrate the soul.
Therefore, one must safeguard oneself against it through the following:
First, by constantly remembering and acknowledging Allah’s grace upon one in all things.
While remaining aware of one’s own shortcomings toward one’s Lord.
And recognizing that one has not fulfilled His due right of gratitude and worship, regardless of what one does.
And that if one were left to one’s own devices, even for a fleeting moment,
one would go astray and suffer loss.
Second, by remembering one’s own sins and flaws while forgetting one’s good deeds and acts of obedience.
Do not be deceived by the strength of your faith or the abundance of your deeds.
For she who unraveled her yarn after it had been spun strongly,
unraveled it after it had been made firm.
“And be not like unto her who unravelleth the thread, after she hath made it strong, to thin filaments, making your oaths a deceit between you because of a nation being more numerous than (another) nation. Allah only trieth you thereby, and He verily will explain to you on the Day of Resurrection that wherein ye differed.” (16:92)
Third, by considering the person whom one deems oneself superior to,
and realizing that they may possess hidden righteous deeds that one is unaware of,
but which Allah knows.
And that these deeds may be more numerous and greater than what one does oneself.
Or that the person one considers inferior may indeed not perform as many righteous deeds as one does,
yet they excel in the performance of their deeds,
and possess a sincerity in them that the one who admires himself lacks.
Fourth, by remembering that one’s self-admiration for one’s deeds may render them void,
leaving them on the Day of Resurrection as scattered dust, at the very moment one is in greatest need of them.