“Do not envy one another; do not hate one another; do not turn your back on one another (in discontent); (but) be slaves of Allah as brothers.” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
Enviousness is one of the most dangerous heart disease for human being. Not only it brings many disadvantages, enviousness could destroy someone’s life and shaken his faith to Allah SWT. When someone become unhappy toward other people’s blessing, then he is envy.
It’s different with competing to be the best, since envious people wants the blessing of others to get removed.
The Prophet said, “Beware of envy, because it devours good deeds just like a fire consumes wood.” (Abu Dawud)
The danger of envy not only erase the good deeds. Moreover, it leads people to disbelief.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “The deeds of anyone of you will not save you from the Fire.” They said, “Even you, [will not be saved by your deeds] O Allah’s Apostle?” He said, “No, even I [will not be saved] unless and until Allah bestows His Mercy on me. Therefore, do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately, and worship Allah in the forenoon and in the afternoon and during a part of the night, and always adopt a middle, moderate, regular course whereby you will reach your target.” (Bukhari)
Here are how to prevent envy in Islam:
1. Be Grateful
Allah SWT has given all of His servants blessing. For all that we have we should be grateful since we can never count the blessings Allah SWT has given to us. Rather than focusing on other people’s blessing, ending up counting what we short of, we better thankful to Allah. It’s the Satan whisper that makes us ungrateful.
Also read: Virtues of Gratefulness in Islam
2. Remember the Greatness of Allah SWT
Always remember how great Allah is, more than anything. Our life depends on Allah and He has set the best fate for us. Put trust only in Allah, for every blessing that He gives us and what are not, there are always a good meaning behind.
3. Living on Earth is a Test
Life on Earth is short and it comes as a test to us. We envy something because we don’t have it. Allah SWT wants to see the sincerity of every human being by giving them different kind of blessing. Those who are grateful and never envying what others’ have is the truest servant.
Also read: Benefits of Good Deeds in Islam
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4. Make Dua to Prevent Envy
Remember Allah SWT every time enviousness enter our heart. Make dua to Allah SWT to for the strength and ask Him to purify our heart. Dua is the only thing that connect Allah SWT and His servants.
5. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
If we looking at other person too many times, we’ll be unconsciously envious of them. We’ll start to count what they have and what we don’t, ending up wishing our lives is similar as theirs. We have to stop it from now. There are many source of envy nowadays, most of them are the social media.
Also read: How to be Happy in Islam
6. Seek for More Knowledge
Instead of spending time uselessly which cause us to grow envy to others, it’s better for us to spend it more wisely. Seek for more college during our spare time, such as reading the meaning of Quran or reading any Islamic encyclopedia.
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7. Embrace the Individuality
Every individual is unique and different one to another. Right from the beginning, it’s never right to ever compare ourselves to other since we gain nothing but envy out of it. Accept the fact that people are different, that’s why we’re never similar as other person.
Also read: Succession in Islam
8. Don’t Step on Others to Gain Success
Every person want to be successful in life. However, the way to success can sometimes be rough and not easy at all. So is the time needed for someone until they are successful. Maybe our time come a little late, and we grow an ill feeling to others’s success. We should get rid of these feeling, that our way to success is not by stepping on other people.
9. Learn from Others
The history of Islam has written long about envious people. Starting from Prophet Adam’s (AS) sons, Habil and Qabil, to the people in our surrounding. We must learn from what happened to them in the end. Envious people never have a good ending.
Also read: Rules of Seeking Knowledge in Islam
10. Find What You’re Good At
Rather than mocking at others’ success and trying to put them down every time, we better focus on ourselves and our skills. Find what we’re good at and develop our talent by taking certain classes and train ourselves even harder. This way we will gain success.
11. Don’t Do Things Beyond Your Limit
Our capability is limited, so we should never do more than we can take. Think about the risks and the worst possibility. If it something we likely not capable to do, we better not take it and play safe instead. We just have to give our best and wait for the wonders to happen.
Also read: Quran Dua for Success
12. Focus on Your Goals
Set the goals in life, what we want to do and what we’d like to gain. Once we get it all set, focus on that and don’t let any other things distract us. We don’t have to set a major goals. We can start from the little ones and taking baby steps from there.
13. Be Happy for Others’ Success
When other people gain achievement, if our friend is more successful than we are, we should be sincerely happy for that. Moreover, we have to really mean it. It may hard at first, but once we’ve done it, we’ll feel little happier inside.
Those are all the ways how to prevent envy in Islam. We must remember that Allah SWT loathe a Muslim who envy towards other Muslims, since Allah has given his blessing fairly, according to what he’s done in the world.