Imaam Ibn
Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) stated:
The difference
between humility and humiliation is that humility arises from the knowledge of Allah,
knowing His Names, His Attributes and the attributes of His exaltedness;
exalting Him, loving Him and revering Him; and from one’s knowledge of one’s
soul, its details, the defects and its misdeeds. So the trait of humility
arises from all of that.
Humility entails
feeling helpless before Allah, lowering the wing of submission and being
merciful to His servants. A person should not consider himself superior to
anyone, nor should he consider himself having a right with anyone. Rather, he should consider the people
superior to him and that their rights come before his. Allah gives this
character to whoever loves Him, honors Him and draws nearer to Him.
As for
humiliation, it is wretchedness, meanness, sacrificing the soul and degrading
it to obtain its shares and lusts like the humility of lowly people to attain their
lusts, the humility of object to the subject and the humility of the seeker of
every share to the one he hopes to obtain his share from. All of these are lowliness,
not humility! And Allah – exalted be He - loves humility and hates meanness and
degradation. According to an authentic hadeeth, the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Allah
has revealed to me that you should be humble so that no one should hold himself
above another nor transgress against another.”[1]
The praiseworthy
humility is of two types:
First: A person humbling himself to Allah’s
command by complying with it and to His prohibition by abstaining from it,
because the soul, due to its quest for comfort may hesitate to carry out Allah’s
command and a type of refusal and flight from servitude may emanate from it and
it begins to incline towards committing unlawful actions. So if a person
humbles himself to the command and prohibition of Allah, he has indeed humbled
himself to servitude.
The second type: Humbling oneself before the might, majesty,
sublimity and power of Allah. Whenever a
person feels that he is great, he should remember the might of his Lord, and
that might belongs to Him only; and he should remember His severe anger against
those who contend with Him in that. Hence, he will humble his soul to Him,
submit his heart to the greatness of Allah, and surrender to His authority.
This is the ultimate humility and it necessitates the first type mentioned
above but the converse can never apply. The one who is truly humble is the one
who is blessed with both.
And Allah is
the One whose help is sought.
Source: Ar-Rooh by Ibn Qayyim
al-Jawziyyah. Translated by Abdus-Samee Abdus-Salaam.
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