Recognizing the Importance of Humility- Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmed D.B.

Recognizing the Importance of Humility

Arrogance leads away from Allah whereas humility leads one closer to Him because He likes for His servants to lower themselves. Human beings are slaves to their nafs because of this arrogance, and this nafs can only be trained by submission to Allah and humility in front of Him and His creation.

The Holy Prophet (SAWS) used to beg Allah to be elevated in the eyes of others but to become humble in his opinion of himself. ['0 Allah! Make me one greatly patient and (one) greatly thankful, and belittle me in my own sight and elevate me in the sight of others'(Kanzul ‘Ummal: On the authority of Buraida R.A.)]

People only occupy a lofty position in the hearts of those around them if they are deeply respected, and the arrogant rarely inspire such sincere reverence. Allah will honor people and elevate them in creation only if they are sincere in their humility, and their actions reflect this quality. The branches with the sweetest and most valuable fruit are the ones hanging closest to the ground; attaining humility is the means by which man is deemed worthy in front of Allah .

Humility is a gift from Allah that is to be sought and begged for, just as we implore Allah for such blessings as houses or wives. Man is deprived of a great blessing if he is deprived of humbleness. Our nafs tries its best to instill arrogance in us, which ultimately leads to our destruction. Our best weapon against our nafs is to remind ourselves of our origins.
The Holy Quran says that the servants of The Most Merciful should walk with humility upon the earth. Hence we should ask Allah to inculcate this humility deep in our hearts and allow it to be reflected in all our actions, and we should inculcate the same in our children.
Allah created clay to be intrinsically humble, and created man from that clay so man would also be humble because He loves humility. Man needs to purge his heart of pride and arrogance and acquire a humble posture before he faces Allah on the Day of Judgment. May Allah help us all in training our nafs so that we become humble and root out arrogance from our character.
The kettle only fills the cup when its spout is lowered
A man can only benefit others when he lowers himself before Allah .
-Taken from Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmed 's (DB) lecture