The Difference Between Self-Admiration and People’s Praise
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: People’s praise after finishing a good deed that you performed, and also self-admiration for the good deed. Is there a difference between them? And does praise diminish my reward?
Answer:
Self-admiration invalidates the deed. If you become self-admiring with this deed of yours, it invalidates it, may Allah protect us from that. Likewise, loving people’s praise: if you did it for the sake of people’s praise, then this invalidates the deed, because this is showing off (riya’). But if you did it sincerely for Allah, and people praised you for it without you looking for that or intending it, then this is from the immediate glad tidings of the believer, as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said. Yes.
He says: People’s praise after finishing a good deed that you performed, and also self-admiration for the good deed. Is there a difference between them? And does praise diminish my reward?
Answer:
Self-admiration invalidates the deed. If you become self-admiring with this deed of yours, it invalidates it, may Allah protect us from that. Likewise, loving people’s praise: if you did it for the sake of people’s praise, then this invalidates the deed, because this is showing off (riya’). But if you did it sincerely for Allah, and people praised you for it without you looking for that or intending it, then this is from the immediate glad tidings of the believer, as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said. Yes.
Source
نور على الدرب - الفوزان - 02/250 — archive.org (4:58)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.