Two words that are not the same word

There is a term people reach for here and it is usually the wrong one.

Hasad, in the technical sense, is wanting a blessing taken away from the person who has it. That is a serious thing and it is not common. What most people actually feel looking at a friend's holiday photographs is closer to ghibta, which is wishing you had something like it without wanting them to lose theirs. Or it is plain deflation, which is not even a wish.

That distinction is not something this course invented for your comfort. Al-Ghazali sets it out in the Ihya in exactly these terms. Of the first state, إحداهما أن تكره تلك النعمة وتحب زوالها وهذه الحالة تسمى حسدا, our rendering, that you dislike that blessing and love its removal, and this state is called hasad. Of the second, أن لا تحب زوالها ولا تكره وجودها ودوامها ولكن تشتهي لنفسك مثلها, our rendering, that you do not love its removal and do not dislike its existing or its continuing, but you want the like of it for yourself. The second is the one he names ghibta.

Then he says something more useful than either definition. ولا حجر في الأسامي بعد فهم المعاني, our rendering, there is no restriction on names once the meanings are understood. The two words get swapped in ordinary speech and he says so. Which label your feeling takes is not the thing to be frightened of. And of the second state he is plain: وأما المنافسة فليست بحرام بل هي إما واجبة وإما مندوبة وإما مباحة, our rendering, as for munafasah, it is not forbidden, rather it is either obligatory or recommended or permitted.

Islamqa draws the same line, in fatwa 105471, holding that wishing for yourself a blessing like the one somebody else has, without wanting it taken from them, is permissible and is not called hasad.

Calling ordinary deflation hasad puts a sin on top of a feeling. That is the second layer. The second layer is what this whole course is about.