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When someone corrects me, do I consider whether they are right — or dismiss them because of who they are?
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One verse: Surah Al-A'raf, verse 12. Allah asks Iblis what prevented him from prostrating, and Iblis answers with a claim — I am better than him, You created me from fire and created him from clay. He refused, and then defended the refusal by claiming he was the better of the two. The episode holds one question the whole way through: when someone corrects me, do I consider whether they are right, or do I dismiss them because of who they are?
About twenty minutes of listening in one sitting is not what this is. It runs under eight minutes, needs no prior study, and stands on its own — it is not the Session 2 briefing, which covers 7:11–18 verse by verse and is episode 2.
How this episode is written
The narration is a summary written by IMATX. Classical commentary in it is paraphrased, not quoted, and the commentator is named each time. The Qur'an translation is Saheeh International, read as written. The one hadith is given in its published English translation, and the episode says so at the point where it is read. Reflections, applications and the closing du'a are our own — the du'a is an original supplication, not a transmitted one, and the episode says that too. Every source is listed below with a link.
The qiyas point, which is not in the audio
Commentaries on this verse often carry a well-known report: that Iblis was the first to reason by analogy — qiyas — and that his analogy is what ruined him. Ibn Kathir collects it under its own heading, from al-Hasan al-Basri (“Iblis used Qiyas analogy, and he was the first one to do so”) and from Ibn Sirin, and he considers both chains sound.
Two things keep it out of a seven-minute reflection, and both matter more than the report itself.
First, what kind of statement it is. These are athar — statements of the early generations — not narrations from the Prophet ﷺ. They carry real weight in the commentary tradition and they are not the same thing as a hadith, and a listener should not have to guess which they just heard.
Second, what the criticism is actually about. It is not about reasoning. Analogy is a normal, necessary tool in Islamic law, and al-Qurtubi is explicit on this verse in separating an invalid comparison that contradicts a clear command from legitimate legal reasoning. The objection to Iblis is not that he thought. It is that he set his thinking against an explicit instruction he had already understood. Left compressed into a sentence of audio, the point reliably comes out as “reasoning is dangerous,” which is not what any of these sources say.
A boundary worth repeating
A person correcting you is not the same as Allah commanding you. People are often wrong, and asking someone what they are basing a claim on, disagreeing respectfully, or keeping reasonable limits on your time and attention are all fine. The question the episode asks is narrower: whether someone's age, newness or standing is quietly preventing you from giving what they said a fair hearing at all. The test is not whether you end up agreeing. It is whether you considered it.
The practice
- Pause before defending yourself.
- Ask what is true in the correction.
- If it is right, acknowledge it and change one concrete thing — “You're right about that. Let me fix it.”
Transcript
Read the full transcript
The correction we resist0:00
Someone younger than you mentions, kindly enough, that something you have been saying for years is not quite right. Before you have really taken in what they said, a sentence has formed: I have been doing this since before you were born. That may be true, and it still answers the person rather than the correction.
So here is the question for this whole reflection. When someone corrects me, do I consider whether they are right — or do I dismiss them because of who they are?
The verse and its setting0:28
Assalamu alaikum, and welcome to this reflection from IMATX. We are staying today with one sentence in Surah Al-A'raf, spoken by Iblis: I am better than him.
The setting is early in the surah. Allah says that He created us and gave us form, and then told the angels to prostrate to Adam. They all prostrated, except Iblis. Then Allah puts a question to him, and Iblis answers it.
Here is that answer — verse twelve, recited by Mishary Rashid Alafasy.
Al-A'raf 7:12 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy, from the Islamic Network CDN. Read 7:12 on quran.com.
In the Saheeh International translation: Allah said, "What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?" Satan said, "I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay."
Two things before we go on. The first: this is not the only place the exchange appears. Surah Sad, verses seventy-five and seventy-six, tells it again, with the same answer.
The second is what the answer actually is. It is not a denial, and it is not a question. He refused, and then defended the refusal by claiming he was the better of the two.
The verse after it says what became of him: descend from here, it is not for you to be arrogant in it, you are of the debased. The claim went up; the sentence came down.
How superiority becomes an excuse2:10
Ibn Kathir, in his commentary on this verse, makes one point that the rest of this reflection rests on. I am paraphrasing him here, not quoting. He says the excuse is worse than the offence itself — because Iblis was not confessing to anything. He was explaining why the command should not have applied to him.
Consider the shape of that. A command was given, plainly, by the One who gave him existence. And instead of obeying, he set his own rank against it, and the rank won. The superiority was not an observation made on the side. It was the reason he gave for not doing what he was told.
Ibn Kathir also says where the comparison goes wrong. Iblis looked at what Adam was made from, and did not look at what Allah had just done for him. He weighed the material and ignored the honour.
That is the mechanism, and it travels. A claim about who I am, used to settle a question about what is true. Once that works, we never have to hear the thing being said to us.
Recognising it in ourselves3:14
So where does this show up in us? Almost never in those words. What we produce is a reason — usually accurate, quick to arrive, and arriving after the decision has already been made somewhere further back.
There is a narration in Sahih Muslim, ninety-one a, from Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, that puts a definition on this. The Prophet ﷺ said that whoever has in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride will not enter Paradise. A man in the gathering heard that and asked about it — he said that a person likes his dress to be fine, and his shoes to be fine.
The answer came: Allah is Graceful and He loves Grace. Pride is disdaining the truth, and contempt for the people. That last line is the translated wording of the narration, and it is the definition.
The Arabic word being defined is kibr. Notice what it leaves out. Liking good clothes is not it. Kibr is those two things: refusing the truth when you hear it, and looking down on the person in front of you.
Now, a boundary, because this can be turned against people. A person correcting you is not the same as Allah commanding you. People are often wrong.
You are allowed to ask someone what they are basing that on. You are allowed to disagree, respectfully, and to keep reasonable limits on your time and your attention. None of that is kibr.
The question is narrower, and harder. Is their age, or their newness, or their standing quietly stopping you from giving what they said a fair hearing at all? That is the test — not whether you end up agreeing. Whether you actually considered it.
One practice, repentance, and du'a4:57
So here is one practice for this week, in three steps. First: when a correction comes, pause before you defend yourself. Just that — do not answer in the first moment.
Second: ask what is true in what they said. Not whether they had the right to say it, not whether they said it well. What in it is true.
Third: if it is right, acknowledge it, and change one concrete thing. It does not need a speech. You're right about that. Let me fix it. That is the whole sentence.
And this is where the surah gives us something to hope in. A few verses later, Adam and his wife also do what they were told not to do. But their answer is the opposite one: our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers. No claim of rank, no defence. They name it and ask for mercy, and that door stayed open.
Let me close with a du'a of our own — not a transmitted supplication, just words for tonight. O Allah, when the truth reaches us, let us recognise it, whoever carries it. Take the weight of kibr out of our hearts. And when we are wrong, make us quick to say so, and quick to turn back to You.
Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
Sources
- Al-A'raf 7:12 — the anchor verse, recited and translated in the episode. quran.com/al-araf/12. Translation: Saheeh International.
- Al-A'raf 7:11 — created, then given form, then the command to the angels. Summarised in the episode, not recited. quran.com/al-araf/11.
- Al-A'raf 7:13 — the sentence that follows: “Descend from Paradise, for it is not for you to be arrogant therein. So get out; indeed, you are of the debased.” quran.com/al-araf/13. Translation: Saheeh International.
- Sad 38:75–76 — the parallel account of the same exchange, with the same answer. quran.com/sad/75.
- Al-A'raf 7:23 — the closing connection: “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers.” quran.com/al-araf/23. Translation: Saheeh International.
- Tafsir Ibn Kathir on 7:12 (English, abridged) — the excuse being worse than the offence, and Iblis looking at the material rather than the honour bestowed. Paraphrased in the episode, not quoted. Also the source for the qiyas reports discussed in the show notes above. quran.com.
- Tafsir al-Qurtubi on 7:12 — the distinction between an analogy that contradicts a clear command and legitimate legal reasoning. Discussed in the show notes, not in the audio. quran.ksu.edu.sa.
- Sahih Muslim 91a, Book 1, Hadith 171, from Abdullah b. Mas'ud — no one with the weight of a mustard seed of pride in his heart enters Paradise; asked about a man liking fine dress and fine shoes, the answer given is that Allah is Graceful and loves Grace, and that pride is “disdaining the truth … and contempt for the people.” The episode reads this published English wording and says that it is doing so. sunnah.com/muslim:91a.
- Recitation — Mishary Rashid Alafasy, 128 kbps, via the Islamic Network CDN.