Surah 9: al-Tawba
9:25 God has already helped you in many homesteads, and on the Day of Hunain, when you admired your own multitude.
Self-admiration is the ghoul of the road. It is the blight of the religion, the cause of the disappearance of blessings, the key to separation, and the basis of heedlessness. Self-admiration is that you consider your own obedience important, you consider yourself the source of your service, and you look upon your service with the eye of approval. By the decree of the reports and the fatwa of prophethood, the obedience of such a person will never go any further than his own head.
The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, I am trying to avoid two claims, and from each I ask the help of Your bounty: fancying that I have something of my own, and fancying that I have a rightful due against You.
“O God, I have risen up from where I was, but I have not yet reached where I want to go.
“O God, anyone who has not yet been killed by selflessness is a corpse. When someone's portion of friendship is talk, he has been defrauded. When someone's religion is not the road of spirit and heart, what business has he with the Friend?”
Muṣ?afā said, “If you did not sin, I would be afraid that you would have something worse than sin: self-admiration! self-admiration!”
He also said, “What a bad servant! A servant who imagines, becomes conceited, and forgets the Great, the Transcendent. What a bad servant! A servant who dominates, transgresses, and forgets the All-Compelling, the Highest. What a bad servant! A servant who is negligent, inattentive, and forgets the tomb and disintegration. What a bad servant! A servant who is worried, oversteps, and forgets the beginning and the end.”