Thus, in a person of handsome appearance, either chastity and good character prevail, or their opposites prevail, or the two are evenly balanced.

If righteousness prevails in him, his beauty is proportionate to it, and he is more beautiful than someone who has not undergone that trial.

If corruption prevails in him, he is not beautiful but ugly and blameworthy. He is therefore not included in the saying, “Allah is beautiful and loves beauty.”

If the two are evenly balanced in him, he possesses beauty and ugliness accordingly, and is neither loved nor hated.

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, made this statement to distinguish between the arrogance that Allah hates and the beauty that Allah loves. He said:

“No one who has an atom’s weight of arrogance in his heart will enter Paradise.”

A man said, “O Messenger of Allah, a man likes his clothes and shoes to look fine. Is that arrogance?”

He replied, “No. Allah is beautiful and loves beauty. Arrogance is rejecting the truth and looking down on people.”

He thus explained that making one’s clothing look fine may be part of the beauty that Allah loves, as Allah Most High says:

“Take your adornment at every mosque.”
[Surah al-Aʿrāf 31]

In that case, it is not arrogance.