ʿUjb After Worship · Self-Amazement at One's Own Worship

The story

Iblīs's foundational disease was ʿujb. He said: 'I am better than him; You created me from fire and created him from clay.' (Q 7:12.) The Quran preserves Iblīs's first-person claim. Ibn al-Qayyim: 'Iblīs's ʿujb destroyed thousands of years of worship in a single moment of refusal.'

Why it's named first

ʿUjb after worship is the structural inversion of the worship's purpose: the believer performs the act of submission and immediately experiences pride at having performed it. The Prophet ﷺ: 'Three things destroy: stinginess that is obeyed, desire that is followed, and a person being amazed with himself (iʿjāb al-marʾ bi-nafsih).' (Ṭabarānī al-Awsaṭ, hasan with supporting narrations.) ʿUjb after worship is more dangerous than missing the worship: missed-worship can be made up with tawbah; ʿujb-tainted worship requires both tawbah for the underlying sin and tawbah for the ʿujb itself.

In the Qur'an

لَقَدْ نَصَرَكُمُ ٱللَّهُ فِى مَوَاطِنَ كَثِيرَةٍ ۙ وَيَوْمَ حُنَيْنٍ ۙ إِذْ أَعْجَبَتْكُمْ كَثْرَتُكُمْ فَلَمْ تُغْنِ عَنكُمْ شَيْـًٔا وَضَاقَتْ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلْأَرْضُ بِمَا رَحُبَتْ ثُمَّ وَلَّيْتُم مُّدْبِرِينَ

“Allāh has already given you victory in many regions and [even] on the day of Ḥunayn, when your great number pleased you, but it did not avail you at all, and the earth was confining for you with [i.e., in spite of] its vastness; then you turned back, fleeing.”

9:25Listen Read 9:25 with tafsir

Svenska: Gud har kommit till er hjälp i många drabbningar och [så gjorde Han] under slaget vid Hunayn när er styrka gjorde er övermodiga, fastän den inte räckte till för att ge er segern; då kändes den vida jorden trång för er, och till sist gjorde ni helt om och flydde.

In the Sunnah

Ṭabarānī (above). Cross-ref Muslim 2621 (Jundub): the man who said 'by Allah, Allah will not forgive so-and-so' and Allah responded: 'Who is this who swears by Me that I will not forgive so-and-so? Indeed, I have forgiven him and have made your deeds void.'

The cure

1. After every worship-act, immediately make istighfār. The Prophet ﷺ modeled this after every ṣalāh (three istighfārs). 2. Recall the source of the worship-act: who gave you the body, time, guidance? Each was Allah; the act is Allah's gift back to Himself through you. 3. Fix attention on those who have more worship than you. 4. Recall a major sin you committed; the worship-act has not yet erased it.

What is at stake

The believer in ʿujb after worship loses the operational benefit of the worship. Worse, the diseased state generates additional sins: contempt for those who do not perform the same level; harshness in calling others to the religion; certainty in his own salvation that produces ighrār.