Miraʾ

Mira is the habitual tendency to argue, dispute, and contradict — not from genuine pursuit of truth but from the ego's desire to be right, to dominate conversations, and to establish intellectual superiority. Al-Ghazali identifies mira as a particularly widespread vice in religious and scholarly circles, where the sharpness of mind that scholarship requires easily slides into the pride of always needing to have the last word. He quotes the prophetic warning that 'no people went astray after receiving guidance except through disputation,' and argues that the person of genuine knowledge knows when to speak and when to remain silent, while the person of mira knows only when to speak.

As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Ghazali and the scholars of his school.