Page 29 - Faith: The Way to Happiness

The Unhappiness of the Society of the Ignorant

rives great pleasure from this.
In the community of the ignorant, this behavior, which is very
widespread, goes by the name of "feeling proud." In this way people
try to hide the unpleasantness of what they are doing for the re a l
purpose of attracting praise. They try to present reasonable grounds
for their incorrect behavior by sheltering behind phrases such as "I
feel proud" or "I'm proud of him." In fact, all this behavior is driven
by the motive of putting on a show for others.
Houses are another subject of boasting widespread amongst the
community of the ignorant. A person who buys a new house and
furnishes it beautifully invites his friends around because he has
made his house suitable for display. By showing off the house to oth-
ers, he creates a situation in which he will receive praise and attract
admiration.
All the above are behavioral aberrations which occur because
people do not think about how and for what purpose they should
use what they own. In the Qur'an, Allah cites a person called Qarun
from the tribe of Prophet Musa (as) as an example of the end which
will be met by people who make worldly decorations the subject of
boasting about themselves. Allah tells us that he gave Qarun gre a t
wealth but that in response, he gloated:
Qarun was one of the people of Musa but he lorded it over
them. We gave him treasures, the keys alone to which were
a heavy weight for a party of strong men. When his people
said to him, "Do not gloat. Allah does not love people who
gloat" (Surat al-Qasas: 76)
Q a run ignored the people's warnings and claimed that his
wealth had been given him because of "knowledge" he has, (Surat
al-Qasas: 78) and made this a subject of boasting about his superior-
ity over his fellow people. The people coveted Qarun's wealth:

27