VAUNTING

 Arabic equivalent of vaunting is “mubahat” and it is to praise oneself with the things other than moral virtues. People vaunt themselves with physical strength, beauty or with the thinks like rank, position, wealth, esteem, degree and grade.

 The opposite of “mubahat” is “tevazu”-humility-.

 The physical beauty is a favor and a gift granted to man by Allah-May His glory be exalted-. Nobody can be beautiful with his own will. Indeed Allah created human being in the most excellent pattern -ahsen-i taqvim-. But as there are people who are more beautiful, clever, learned, talented, courageous, skilled and generous than others, also all of them are different from each other with their eyes, stature, kindness, speaking and similar features. Disabled people may be considered as deficient by some people. But there is no obstacle for those people to be a born servant who is close to Allah -the Most High- with their prayers and worship that they can perform. Doubtlessly the beauty of heart and morals is much more important than physical beauty. So the people who have the disorder of vaunting and whose body is beautiful and look to others with pride but do not have good morals waste their valued life by this way, this a great loss. (1)

 The remedy for vaunting is that: the person who is proud of the strength of his body, vaunts with his youth and good looking should think he lives in a place which is transitory and perishable. Someday the garden of life will be upset by the wind of death and the leaves of life will be shed and buried in earth. Death will carry away the youth, prettiness and strength like dust and make him as if he never existed. Indeed the thing that is known as beauty is consisted of a perverse blood. It comes into existence from a substance that is seen simple. When we consider that someday this beauty will be perished, it is not reasonable to be proud of something of which origin is that.

 When one of the savants Tavus-i Yumni saw an Arab prince, Yezid b.Mihleb full up with the proud of youth and power, drunk by the glass of arrogance, unaware of being transitory in this world; he gave advice to him:
-O young man! The way you choose is wrong, prohibited and sin. You are on a mistake by which you draw the torment of Allah upon you.
The prince didn’t listen to the advice of savant and raised his head by answering “Do you know who I am and the greatness of my rank? Then the savant said these words which includes high meanings full with wisdom:
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(1) Sufi Ethics ( M.Z.Kotku )

 - I know you well, your past is a scattered dirty seminal fluid, your end is a dirty corpse and between those two states you are a carrier of dirt and urine.

 One of the Shafii scholars Ebu Muhammed Baki said this poem under the influence of these words which express high meanings and intricate line of thought: “I am surprised by the person who is proud of his appearance. First he was a dirty fluid. After having a fine shape he becomes a dirty corpse. His vaunts with the dirt he carries between these two points.”

 If the pride and vaunting is for the origin, nobility and family, The Apostle of Allah also prohibited this. He regarded as evil to cry loudly by lamenting for the dead, to make interpretation by looking to stars and to vaunt by one’s family.

 The remedy for being pride by one’s nobility: This person should consider that the thing that he vaunts for and shows a happily excitement, is the quality, knowledge and talent of another person. Whereas being proud of with the maturity of another person is a disgrace according to honorable people. To vaunt with one’s father, grandfathers is to say that “the virtues they had belong to me”. Supposing that if these ancestors had been alive and told this person: “The things which you vaunt are our qualities, knowledge and talent. How you can be proud of our characteristics?” Then the person who vaunts with the qualities on which he has no right would have surprised, stopped talking and found no answer to this objection.

 In Ancient Greece, in the time of Socrates there was a person whose family is honored but he himself was depraved of honor and modesty. He said to Socrates that “Aren’t you ashamed among people by remembering that your family is not noble?” Great philosopher gave this answer in reply to this: “You are more entitled to be ashamed than me and you are closer to going astray. Because although you have a noble family you yourself couldn’t have a honored generation. But I have - with the word of Allah- become an origin of an honored generation.

 One of the Ancient Greek governors exalted himself against a young philosopher and vaunts, the virtuous young man gave this answer: “If the cause of your pride is having fine dresses and wide houses, then the goodness and the beauty are belong to the dresses and house. Indeed you are deprived of goodness and the essence of the virtue. You vaunt with the horses you have, by this way you are estranged from wisdom and you reveal your laziness. Because good effort belongs to the horse. If you are proud of the knowledge and talent of some other people, fathers and grandfathers, if each of them wants the high qualities that you do not have but still you vaunt with, you will be left alone and be like a garden which turns to yellow in autumn.