Speaking on Al-Kawthar program “Problems and Solutions”, Sami Khadra said vanity and boasting are moral diseases.

He added that vanity is the origin, while the boasting and arrogance are branches of it.

Khadra said vanity and worthless, unfounded pride is that a person mistakenly thinks that he is better than others or that he owns what others don’t.

The cleric noted that vanity is dangerous as it has many sources such as the appearance, the knowledge, the wealth, the fame and the sons, adding that even the longevity could be a source for vanity as someone could think that he committed a lot of sins, but he is still alive and has a good life.

He also cited youthfulness, strength, the power, the blessings showered on the person and the beauty as other sources of vanity.

Khadra noted that vanity, which is equivalent to boasting and arrogance, is one of the traits rejected in Islam, quoting Imam Ali (PBUH) as saying “Let go of your pride, put down your arrogance, and remember your grave.”

The cleric stressed that whenever a person be showered with blessings, he has to be thankful to God instead of being arrogant, and should be more humble.

Khadra quoted a part of a verse in the Quran that says “Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another”.

He also quoted a part of another Quranic verse that says “Allah does not love the proud and the boastful”. The cleric noted that the humans have to be humble.

Asked about the way to suppress this desire if someone began to be arrogant, he noted that people have to know that the sources of vanity are impermanent.

The cleric added if the source of his vanity was the beauty then the person should know that he did not made it and that it is impermanent.

He further said if the source of vanity was youthfulness, every person should know that it is just a stage and will end.

Khadra added that if the source of vanity was the blessings, then the person should remember that he did not made them and those blessings do not last, quoting Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) saying “Oh Allah, don't leave me to myself. Even for a blink of an eye.”

Referring to the case when the person becomes arrogant because of his sons, the cleric said there are many people who have sons and big family, but they are themselves not a source of pride. He also cited Quran as saying “Competition in [worldly] increase diverts you. Until you visit the graveyards.”

Khadra also quoted another verse in Quran that says “When the Horn is blown, no relations between them will exist on that Day, and they will not ask after one another”, noting that only your deeds are important in the Day of Resurrection and not your sons and family.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Khadra said that the arrogant thinks that he is better than others.

Referring to the Quranic verses “Do they assume that, in furnishing them with wealth and children. We race to give them the good things? In fact, they have no idea”, Khadra noted that wealth is not necessarily a good thing and could be a woe.

The cleric also referred to another source of vanity which is worship, and said the base of worship is sincerity, stressing that when there is vanity, there will not be sincerity in worship.

He quoted Imam Sadeq (PBUH) as saying “The arrogant is poor in the world, and loser in the hereafter.”

Khadra also recommended struggling against the Self (Jihad an-Nafs) to prevent being an arrogant.