وَلا تُصَعِّر خَدَّكَ لِلنّاسِ وَلا تَمشِ فِي الأَرضِ مَرَحًا ۖ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ مُختالٍ فَخورٍ
Do not turn your cheek disdainfully from the people, and do not walk exultantly on the earth. Indeed, Allah does not like any swaggering braggart.
EXEGESIS
Tuṣaʿʿir (turn your cheek disdainfully) is an imperative verb of the second form of Arabic verbal forms for the root verb ṣaʿara.[1] Tuṣaʿʿir means to cause to turn the cheek or neck away from someone in pride,[2] or due to dislike,[3] or to turn the cheek toward someone in pride.[4] Here, it occurs as a negative imperative (lā tuṣaʿʿir), meaning ‘do not turn your cheek away/towards someone in pride’.[5] Its verbal noun is taṣʿīr, which Rāghib defines as ‘inclining, twisting, or turning the neck away from people due to pride’.[6] The verbal noun of the root verb ṣaʿara is ṣaʿr, which means turning away one’s cheek or face from people out of contempt due to pride.[7] Rāghib writes that the word ṣaʿr means ‘a slant or skewness or inclination or tilt in the neck’.[8] Originally, the word ṣaʿr is the name of a disease in the neck or head of a camel that causes a distortion and twisting of the neck to one side.[9] The resemblance is used here for a person who behaves arrogantly with others.[10]
Maraḥ (exultance) means happiness and glee due to conceit and arrogance.[11] Rāghib defines it as ‘intense and extensive happiness and glee/jubilation’.[12]
Mukhtāl (swaggering) is an active participle.[13] It is derived from the verbal noun khuyalāʾ which means pride, vanity, and arrogance,[14] due to a merit or virtue that a person fancies or imagines in himself or herself.[15] So the term means a person who is arrogant, proud, and conceited,[16] in the opinion of Mujāhid.[17] It also means to walk with a self-conceited gait,[18] to strut about, to swagger, and to carry oneself with pride combined with slowness.[19]
Fakhūr (braggart) is an active participle[20] in an exaggerated form denoting intensity,[21] derived from the noun fakhr.[22] It means mentioning virtues or feats to condescend the listener;[23] a boastful, vainglorious, and proud mention of one’s feats.[24]
EXPOSITION
Having mentioned virtuous deeds, Luqmān moves on to the matter of social etiquette and good manners with people, specifying two issues that are strongly negated, both of them related to pride.
Do not turn your cheek disdainfully from the people, thereby putting on a contemptuous mien.[25] Ibn Abbas and Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) explained this negative imperative to mean ‘do not turn your face away from the people in pride,[26] and do not turn away from the one speaking to you in order to denigrate him/her’[27] thereby attempting to emphasise one’s superiority over another person. Ibn Abbas is also attributed to have explained this part of the verse, saying: ‘It refers to the one who twists his neck away like a conceited person when greeted.’[28] Saʿīd ibn Jubayr explained it as: ‘Do not turn your face away from the poor, in pride.’[29] In other words, it means do not be proud and arrogant, do not turn away conceitedly.[30] Sharīf al-Raḍī sheds more light on the expression Do not turn your cheek disdainfully from the people, writing as follows: ‘This is a figure of speech. The original meaning of the word ṣaʿr is a disease which afflicts camels in their heads, which causes a distortion and twisting of the neck to one side. So it is as if Luqmān is instructing his son not to be proud and arrogant and not to exhibit pride by means of his face [by turning disdainfully away] like a [sick] camel [twisting and contorting its neck] when struck with this disease.’[31] This is because looking at one’s interlocutor during conversation is generally considered a sign of respect and dignity, while turning the face away from one’s interlocutor is generally considered a sign of denigration in most cultures.[32] This deed originates from vanity and arrogance. Hence, when the hypocrites were told, ‘Come, so that Allah’s Apostle may plead for forgiveness for you,’ they twist their heads, and you see them turn away while they are disdainful (63:5).
And do not walk exultantly on the earth, meaning in a swaggering, vain fashion, because that is the walking style of the proud and arrogant people[33] who try to raise themselves above people for flimsy reasons and imagine that others are beneath them and servile to them[34] (17:37, 40:75-76). Imam al-Bāqir (a) is attributed to have explained this part of the verse as ‘do not walk on the earth displaying power and majesty (al-ʿaẓamah)’.[35] A contemporary proverb goes: the scheming cunning one fools others while the proud and arrogant one fools himself![36]
Luqmān then mentions the reason why he counselled against these two traits, saying Indeed, Allah does not like any swaggering braggart, meaning God hates one who is enamoured of himself, and boastful and proud with others[37] (4:36, 57:23). From the roots of pride and conceit is that such a person finds in himself lowliness, despicability, and insignificance, or possesses an inferiority complex. Thus he wishes to cover it up with pride and conceit over people.[38] Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) points to this fact, saying: ‘There is not a person who is proud or tyrannical save for an abjectness and lowliness that he finds in himself.’[39] As for a person who is sober, reasonable, and safe from the knot of meanness and nastiness, they humble themselves to people and thereby earn the love of the people.[40] How well has a poet said: ‘Be humble, [and] you shall be like the full moon whose visage can be observed [reflected] on the surface of the water while it [the moon] is high [in the sky]. Do not be like smoke, which ascends high into the atmosphere while it is contemptible and [soon becomes] lost [in the air].’[41]
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- Imam Ali (a) said: ‘There is no loneliness more severe than conceit, and no pedigree like humility.’[42]
- Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) relates that the Messenger of God said: ‘Whoever walks on the earth arrogantly, has the earth, whoever is below it, and whoever is on it, curse him.’[43]
- Imam al-Bāqir (a) relates that the Messenger of God said: ‘Woe be to whoever is arrogant on the earth, defying the powerful Lord of the heavens and the earth.’[44]
- A man came to the Messenger of God and said: ‘Messenger of God! Advise me!’ From what the Messenger of God advised him was: ‘Meet your brother with a cheerful face.’[45]
- The Messenger of God said: ‘Nothing better than good character shall be placed on the scales of deeds of a person on the Day of Resurrection.’[46]
- Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) said: ‘Performance of good deeds and [possessing] good character populates dwellings and increases lifespans.’[47]
- Imam Ali (a) said the following with respect to humility: ‘Humility is the adornment of the noble person (al-sharīf).’[48]
- Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) said: ‘Humility is the basis of every valuable goodness. It is an elevated rank. If humility had a language which creation understood it would have apprised them of the realities of what is hidden of outcomes. Whoever is humble for God’s sake shall have God honour him over many of His servants. God, the mighty and majestic, does not have an act of worship which He accepts and is pleased with, save that its door is humility.’[49]
[1] Lane, 2/1699.
[2] Lane, 2/1699; Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 525.
[3] Lane, 2/1699.
[4] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 525.
[5] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 525.
[6] Cited in Mizan, 16/218.
[7] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 525; Kashif, 6/159; Lane, 2/1699; Munyah, 21/130.
[8] Cited in Mizan, 16/218.
[9] Tibyan, 8/280; Tabrisi, 8/500; Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 525; Lane, 2/1699.
[10] Tibyan, 8/280.
[11] Munyah, 21/130.
[12] Cited in Mizan, 16/218.
[13] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 294.
[14] Kashif, 6/159; Munyah, 21/130.
[15] Munyah, 21/130.
[16] Tibyan, 8/280; Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 294; Lane, 2/837.
[17] Tibyan, 8/280.
[18] Tibyan, 8/280.
[19] Lane, 2/837.
[20] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 697.
[21] A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language, p. 86.
[22] Amthal, 13/47.
[23] Tibyan, 8/280; Munyah, 21/130.
[24] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 697.
[25] Munyah, 21/141.
[26] Tibyan, 8/280.
[27] Tabrisi, 8/500.
[28] Suyuti, 5/166.
[29] Suyuti, 5/166.
[30] Tibyan, 8/280; Mizan, 16/219.
[31] Talkhīṣ al-Bayān, p. 186, cited in Munyah, 21/141.
[32] Munyah, 21/141.
[33] Tibyan, 8/280; Tabrisi, 8/500; Mizan, 16/219; Munyah, 21/141.
[34] Munyah, 21/141.
[35] Qummi, 2/165.
[36] Munyah, 21/141.
[37] Mizan, 16/219; Safi, 4/146; Munyah, 21/141.
[38] Munyah, 21/141.
[39] Munyah, 21/141.
[40] Munyah, 21/141.
[41] Munyah, 21/141.
[42] Kashif, 6/163.
[43] Nur, 4/207.
[44] Nur, 4/207.
[45] Amthal, 13/51.
[46] Amthal, 13/51.
[47] Amthal, 13/51.
[48] Amthal, 13/51.
[49] Amthal, 13/51-52.