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The pillars of disbelief are four: arrogance, envy, anger, and lust. Arrogance keeps a person from submitting; envy keeps him from accepting and offering sincere counsel; anger keeps him from acting justly; and lust keeps him from freeing himself for worship.

When the pillar of arrogance is demolished, submission becomes easy. When the pillar of envy falls, accepting and giving advice becomes easy. When the pillar of anger collapses, justice and humility become easy. And when the pillar of lust is broken, patience, chastity, and worship become easy.

To uproot these four from someone who is afflicted by them is harder than moving mountains from their places—especially after they have become deep-seated states, ingrained habits, and fixed traits. So long as they remain, no deed will stand upright, the soul will never grow pure, and however hard a person strives, these four will spoil his efforts. Every affliction springs from them. Once they take firm hold in the heart, they make falsehood appear as truth and truth as falsehood, good as evil and evil as good; they draw this world close and push the Hereafter far away.

Reflect on the unbelief of past nations and you will find it rooted in these four. Punishment descends because of them, and its weight corresponds to how strongly they are present. Whoever opens these traits within himself opens every gate of evil, in this world and the next; whoever shuts them bars the gates of evil, for they block submission, sincerity, repentance, turning back to Allah, acceptance of truth, giving counsel to the Muslims, and humility before Allah and His creatures.

The source of these four lies in a person’s ignorance of his Lord and his ignorance of himself. Had he truly known his Lord—possessor of every perfection and majesty—and known his own soul, marked by deficiencies and flaws, he would not