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Chapter VIII: Evils of Status and Ostentation

Medicine of action is to make oneself the object of rebuke. In order to remove the love of praise, you should do such act for which you may be rebuked and that respect for you should go from the minds of the people. Love to remain aloof from the people and not to meet them. In a certain city, there lived a learned and pious man: The ruler of that country being charmed with his praise came to see him. When the hermit saw the ruler, he began to eat food and curry with big morsels. Seeing this manner of taking food, the respect that the ruler had in his mind for the hermit went away and he departed. The pious man said:
All praise is due to God who removed you from me. Another pious man used to drink lawful drink in such a cup of which the colour resembled the colour of wine. Seeing this, the people thought that he was drinking wine and so their respect for him decreased. This is allowed according to Shariat. These pious men take sure medicine for purification of their soul which is not included within the decision of legists. One pious man observed that his name spread for his renunciation of this world and that the people were corrting to him. Then he entered a bathroom and put on another's cloth. Then he came out and waited on the road.
The people caught him as a thief and beat him. When the people came to know, of it, they stopped coming to him. The best way oi preventing fame is to leave one's own place. When his name and fame spread, he should live in distant land where nobody knows him.

CAUSES OF LOVE OF PRAISE AND THEIR MEDICINE:

The first cause is appreciation of one's own qualities. Its medicine is this. Ask your conscience, have you got the quality for which you are praised? If you have got that quality whether you are fit to receive praise for it or not. The quality for which you are fit to receive praise is that of learning or God-fear. That for which you are not fit to receive praise is your wealth, power and influence. If you are praised for worldly riches, its joy is like that

Vol-III Love of power and show .221

of grass. Wind will blow it off. So men should not feel joy for worldly riches. If he feels delighted for his wealth, he should not feel joy for the praise of men. If you are praised for your God fear or for your learning, still you should not feel happy as you don't know what will be your condition at the time of earth -whether it will be good or bad. The World is an abode of sorrows and anxieties and not an abode of joy and rejoicings.

(2) The second cause is that the mind of the praiser becomes under the control of the praised man. Its medicine is to search rank from God and not from men. Your knowledge that you search for rank before God is also its medicine. So it cannot be the cause of your joy.

Source: Imam Al-Ghazali, Ihya Ulum al-Din (Revival of the Islamic Sciences)
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