The 365 · Tazkiyah · Day 97 · Worship
Ḥubb al-Madḥ · The Love of Being Praised
The disease
حُبّ الْمَدْح
Ḥubb al-Madḥ
The story
ʿUmar: 'If a man says of me, O leader, you are the best, I weep, because I know my own faults better than he does.' Imam Aḥmad, when his rank was praised: 'We are nothing; we are the dust of the earth.' The pattern: the more deserving of praise, the more cautious of accepting it.
Why it's named first
Ḥubb al-madḥ (love of being praised) is the structural substrate on which riyāʾ grows. The believer who does not love praise cannot be tempted into riyāʾ-acts. The Prophet ﷺ when the Companions praised him to his face: 'When you see those who praise others, throw dust in their faces.' (Muslim 3002, Miqdād ibn al-Aswad.) Praise-acceptance is structurally dangerous; the corrective response is dust.
In the Qur'an
لَا تَحْسَبَنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ يَفْرَحُونَ بِمَآ أَتَوا۟ وَّيُحِبُّونَ أَن يُحْمَدُوا۟ بِمَا لَمْ يَفْعَلُوا۟ فَلَا تَحْسَبَنَّهُم بِمَفَازَةٍ مِّنَ ٱلْعَذَابِ ۖ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ
“And never think that those who rejoice in what they have perpetrated and like to be praised for what they did not do - never think them [to be] in safety from the punishment, and for them is a painful punishment.”
3:188 Read 3:188 with tafsir
Svenska: Tro inte att de som gläder sig åt det som de [anser sig ha] uträttat men också gärna vill få beröm för vad de inte har gjort - tro inte att straffet för dem skall utebli; nej, ett svårt lidande väntar dem.
In the Sunnah
Muslim 3002 (above). Cross-ref Bukhārī 2662, Muslim 3000 on excessive praise: 'You have cut your companion's neck (qaṭaʿta ʿunuq ṣāḥibik).' Excessive praise structurally damages others by feeding their ḥubb al-madḥ.
The cure
1. When praised, deflect: 'this is from Allah, not from me.' 2. Cultivate self-knowledge of your faults. 3. Avoid environments that feed ḥubb al-madḥ. 4. Make duʿāʾ asking Allah to make you indifferent to praise. 5. Read about those who fled praise (Uways al-Qaranī, the unknown ṣāliḥūn).
What is at stake
The believer who loves praise tilts every action toward producing it. Decisions are made not on right-and-wrong but on how-it-will-be-perceived. The diseased state is harder to detect than riyāʾ because it operates upstream: by the time the riyāʾ-act occurs, ḥubb al-madḥ has already shaped the entire decision-pipeline.
A du'a for this day
اللَّهُمَّ أَنْتَ أَعْلَمُ بِي مِنْ نَفْسِي، وَأَنَا أَعْلَمُ بِنَفْسِي مِنْهُمْ، اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنِي خَيْرًا مِمَّا يَظُنُّونَ، وَاغْفِرْ لِي مَا لَا يَعْلَمُونَ، وَلَا تُؤَاخِذْنِي بِمَا يَقُولُونَ
“O Allah, You know me better than I know myself, and I know myself better than they do; O Allah, make me better than they think, forgive me what they do not know, and do not hold me accountable for what they say”
Said by Abū Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq when praised
A supplication in this meaning, not a narrated hadith.
The door of mercy
Within ninety days of conscious praise-deflection, the believer's pleasure-response to praise begins to dampen. The diseased state shrinks as the alternate response is reinforced.
A reflection to carry
Ḥubb al-madḥ is the love of being praised. The Prophet ﷺ: 'When you see those who praise others, throw dust in their faces.' (Muslim 3002.) The disease operates upstream of riyāʾ: by the time the riyāʾ-act occurs, ḥubb al-madḥ has already shaped the entire decision-pipeline.
Read the longer reflection
The Companions trained the discipline of distrusting praise. ʿUmar: 'If a man says of me, O leader, you are the best, I weep, because I know my own faults better than he does.' Imam Aḥmad when praised: 'We are nothing; we are the dust of the earth.' Cure: when praised, deflect ('this is from Allah, not from me'); cultivate self-knowledge of your faults; avoid environments that feed ḥubb al-madḥ; make duʿāʾ asking Allah to make you indifferent to praise; cultivate unknown-good-deeds. Within ninety days of conscious practice, the pleasure-response to praise begins to dampen.
Sources: Quran, Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Ghazali, Ibn al-Qayyim. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
Also on Day 97
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