from him; this is the censured form of envy.
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Envy is denounced in both the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The Exalted says, “Or do they envy people for what Allah has bestowed on them of His bounty?” (Qur’an 4:54). This is Allah’s rebuke of those who begrudge others the favors He has granted them.
Ahmad records under 1415 and al-Tirmidhi under 2510 a narration from al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “The ailment of the nations before you has crept up among you: envy and hatred. They are the razor; I do not mean they shave hair, but rather they shave the religion.”
The consequences of envy are many. It is even said that the very first sin committed against Allah was envy: when He commanded Iblis to prostrate to Adam, Iblis envied him, refused to prostrate, and was expelled from Paradise.
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Ibn Rajab remarked, “Envy is woven into human nature; a person dislikes that anyone of his own kind should surpass him in any virtue.” People therefore fall into several categories:
• Some strive to strip the envied person of his blessing by attacking him in word and deed.
• Others labor to transfer that blessing to themselves.
• A third group seeks merely to remove the envied person, without wishing to acquire the blessing for themselves. All of this is blameworthy envy and is what the texts prohibit.
• A fourth category consists of those who, though they feel envy, do not act upon it; they neither wrong the envied person by word nor by deed. It is related from al-Hasan that such a person bears no sin.
• A fifth and higher category is of those who, when they sense envy within, strive to eliminate it by showing kindness to the envied person—offering him good, praying for him, publicizing his virtues—and by rooting the envy out of their own hearts until it is replaced with genuine love.
This is one of the loftiest degrees of faith, and its bearer is the complete believer who loves