Envy Destroys
Your Inner Being

One’s soul or inner personality is actually the real human being. One must preserve one’s inner personality, especially from negative influences.

The Prophet of Islam once observed: “Save yourself from envy or jealousy, for envy eats up virtues as fire eats up wood.” (Sunan Abu Dawood 4903)

Fire is the killer of wood. Therefore, wood has to be saved from fire in order to preserve it. Similarly, some things are killers of the human body. For bodily health, it is necessary for the body to be completely saved from such fatal things.

Exactly the same is true of a person’s inner personality. A person’s soul or his inner personality is actually the real human being. For this real human being, some things are quite fatal. These things will eat into his inner being like fire, therefore, it is to a person’s advantage to save his inner being from them. He must preserve his human existence. Of the fatal things, the worst is envy. Those who fall a victim to envy will certainly do damage to their spiritual life.

What is envy? Envy is that state of mind in which one covets what another has and cannot bear to see him in possession of it. Such envy, without doubt, harms the envier. It does not lessen the greatness of the envied one.

In the present world when anyone finds some good thing in life, it is in actual fact a gift from God. God gives something to someone or other things to others because of the exigencies of putting a person to the test. Someone is given less, another is given more. In such a situation, becoming envious of others’ special abilities is to go against the natural system established by God. In such a situation of strife, no one can become successful: by failing to accept the divine verdict a person destroys himself.