Now, there is another difficulty: man may easily abandon the major obvious sins, but some sins are so subtle and concealed that man has difficulty perceiving them to begin with, and then to abandon them is all the more difficult. An example of this is that although typhoid fever is a severe fever, it can be treated easily, but treating tuberculosis, which eats away on the inside, is very difficult indeed. In this very way, these subtle and concealed sins appear, which prevent man from attaining virtues. These are moral vices that occur in dealings with each other and hatred, malice, jealousy, hypocrisy, and arrogance arise within hearts on the most trivial of topics and disagreements, and one starts to despise one’s brother. If a person offers the prayer well for a few days and people praise him, hypocrisy and pretence arise, and the fundamental objective of sincerity is lost. If God Almighty has granted a person wealth, knowledge, or some form of family influence, it leads him to consider his brother, who has not received these things, to be despicable and unworthy. And he is desirous of finding fault in his brother.
Arrogance comes in various forms – one manner in some and another form in another. Scholars show it in the expression of knowledge and want to bring down their brothers through intellectual nitpicking. In short, someone somehow wants to insult and injure their brother by scrutinising faults. Day and night they are obsessed with seeking out his faults. These subtle evils are very difficult to remove, and the shariah does not permit these things. The ordinary masses are not alone in suffering from these sins, but those considered distinguished who are well versed and do not commit the major obvious sins are also frequently afflicted. Liberation from these and dying are one and the same thing. So long as salvation from these sins is not attained, self-purification remains incomplete, and man does not become the heir of those perfections and rewards that come from God Almighty after purification of the self. Some people in their respective spheres imagine they have attained liberation from these moral vices, but when the opportunity arises and they are confronted by someone ignorant, they are uncontrollably impassioned and such filth is spewed that is beyond all belief and imagination.
It is then that it becomes known that nothing has been achieved yet and that self-purification which perfects, has not yet been obtained. This also shows that this purification, called moral purification, is very difficult and cannot be achieved without the grace of Allah the Exalted.
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Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as), Malfuzat – Vol. VII (Tilford, Surrey: Islam International Publications Ltd., 2024), 80-82.
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