Whypeopleenvy:al-Ghazali'ssevencauses,theruling,andwhatenvycoststheenvier

The root of it

The root cause is that human nature is moulded on the love of rising above one's own kind. When a person sees another possessing what he lacks, he wants it gone from him — either transferred to himself so that he rises above him, or gone absolutely so that they are at least equal. From this root, al-Ghazali in the Ihya' traces seven distinct causes of envy.

Al-Ghazali's seven causes

1. Enmity and hatred — the strongest cause

Whoever has been hurt by a person, or crossed by him in some aim, comes to hate him in his heart, and anger settles into a grudge. The grudge demands satisfaction and revenge; and if the envier cannot take revenge himself, he wants time itself to take it for him.

2. Protecting one's standing (ta'azzuz)

It weighs on him that a peer should rise above him. If one of his equals gains office, knowledge or wealth, he fears the man will now look down on him — and he cannot bear his superiority or endure his swagger. His aim is not to be above him; he has accepted equality — but he will not accept being beneath.

3. Arrogance (kibr)

It is in his nature to lord it over the other, to belittle him and use him, and to expect him to follow. From arrogance and standing together came the envy of most of the disbelievers towards the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: how should an orphan youth come to lead us, and how should we bow our heads to him?

4. Astonishment

As Allah relates of the former nations: "You are not but human beings like us" — and "Should we believe two men like ourselves?" — and "If you obeyed a human being like yourselves, you would then surely be losers." They were simply astonished that a human like themselves should win the rank of messengership, revelation and nearness to Allah — so they envied the prophets and wished prophethood gone from them: not from calculated arrogance or rivalry, but from sheer disbelief that someone of their own kind was preferred.

5. Fear of missing a shared goal

This one belongs to people competing for a single prize: each envies the other every advantage that could help him take the prize alone. Of this kind, says al-Ghazali, is the mutual envy of co-wives competing over the aims of marriage, and of brothers competing for their parents' hearts.

6. Love of leadership and renown for its own sake

The man who wants to be without equal in his field. When love of praise has mastered him and he thrills at being called the unique one of his age — then merely to hear that somewhere in the world there is another like him grieves him, and he wishes for his death, or for the loss of the blessing that makes him a rival.

7. Meanness of soul

Last, a person mean-spirited at the root: no leadership sought, no arrogance, no rivalry — just a soul that begrudges Allah's servants Allah's own good. When someone's flourishing is described to him it sits heavily on him; when people's setbacks, failures and souring fortunes are described, he rejoices. He loves misfortune for others, and is stingy with Allah's blessings — as though they were being taken out of his own vault and treasury.

The ruling: true envy is haram by consensus

Hasad in its real sense — wishing the blessing's removal from another — is forbidden by the consensus of the ummah, because it is an objection to the Truth Himself, a contesting of what He has done, an attempt to undo His doing, and a wish to strip Allah's favour from one He deemed fit for it. The prohibition rests on the Book, the Sunnah and reason.

From the Quran

Allah commanded seeking refuge from the envier: "And from the evil of an envier when he envies" (al-Falaq 113:5). His evil is of two kinds: unearned — the striking of the eye — and earned: working to block good from reaching the envied, running him down before people, praying against him, perhaps even assaulting him. The commentators differed about which envier the verse means. Qatadah said: the evil of his eye and his soul. Others said the Prophet ﷺ was commanded by this verse to seek refuge from the evil of the Jews who envied him. The sounder view is al-Tabari's: the Prophet ﷺ was commanded to seek refuge from the evil of every envier when he envies — for Allah did not single out one envier from another, but generalised the command, so it stays general. And the envier, as al-Qurtubi put it, is "the enemy of Allah's blessing".

One of the sages said: the envier does battle with his Lord from five directions —

1. He hates every blessing that appears on someone else;
2. He is displeased with his Lord's apportioning — as if to say: why have You divided it this way?;
3. He works against Allah's own act — for Allah gives His favour to whom He wills, and the envier begrudges Allah's favour;
4. He abandons — or wishes the abandonment of — Allah's chosen servants, wanting blessing stripped from them;
5. He gives support to his own enemy, Iblis.

From the Sunnah

From reason

The envier is condemned even on plain reckoning. As it was said: "The envier gains nothing in the gatherings but regret; nothing with the angels but curse and loathing; nothing in his solitude but anguish and grief; nothing at the Judgement but sorrow and burning; and nothing from Allah but distance and wrath."

The one exception — and the case of ghibtah

Excepted from the prohibition: wishing the removal of a blessing held by a disbeliever or an open sinner who uses that very blessing to wage sin against Allah. As for figurative hasad — ghibṭah, wishing for the like of what another has — it is praiseworthy in obedience, blameworthy in sin, and permitted in neutral matters. Of it the Prophet ﷺ said: "There is no hasad except in two: a man to whom Allah gave the Quran, so he recites it night and day; and a man to whom Allah gave wealth, so he spends it night and day" — as if to say: no ghibṭah is greater or better than ghibṭah in these two.

What is forgiven, what is sinful, and what is disputed

Al-Ghazali observes that no one can strip envy from his heart completely — a person remains in lifelong negotiation with his own heart, for something of it towards one's adversaries always survives. He maps three states a person may be in towards those he resents:

1. The involuntary pang, hated by its owner. His nature delights at their misfortune — and his reason detests that delight; he despises himself for it and wishes he could tear the inclination out. This is forgiven, categorically: nothing more is within human choice.
2. The embraced envy. He loves their misfortune and shows his glee by tongue or limb. This is the categorically forbidden hasad.
3. The harboured envy. In between: he envies in his heart, without despising himself for it and without disowning it — but he holds his limbs back from obeying it. This is disputed; the apparent ruling is that it does not escape sin, in proportion to the strength or weakness of that inward love.

The scale matters because it removes false guilt and false comfort at once. The flash of envy you hate in yourself is not held against you. The envy you feed, or act on, is. Where you stand on that ladder is the real question — and the next page gives the ladder in full.