The love a person has for being famous stems from a desire to be better than others, and a desire to be admired by people.

If you look around, you will always see people who strive very hard to do things, either they work hard for money, practice for sports, or study for exams. If you ask some of them why they are working so hard, they will say that it is because they want other people to notice them.

This idea is totally against the principles of Islam. Everything, every act one does, should be totally for the pleasure of Allah, ('lillah'). This does not mean that we must sit and pray 24 hours a day, but means that we should work to make ourselves better so that we may use our talents to help others, in whatever field we choose.

This love for power and wealth is another of the lower desires that a human being possesses. Communities have fought and families have broken over people who are fighting for some sort of status above others.

Imam Ali (A) has said:

"Desire tends to the destruction of the understanding."

This can be seen in real life where people do crazy things just to get power and wealth, they cheat and fail to understand that what they are doing is wrong. They lose their reason and become one track minded.

There is nothing wrong in being a leader, there is nothing wrong in being rich or famous, or having any thing valuable. The only condition which a person needs when having any of the above, is taqwa (awareness of Allah's presence). We must always remember that it is Allah who has given us our gifts and He has given them to us so that we can use them to help others.

This applies from school to when we are all adults, we must never try to become top or rich just for others to praise us.

One important point which not many people understand is that if you are the type of person who possesses any quality, whether money or fame, you will become a leader automatically if you possess taqwa. You will not have to chase leadership, it will chase you.

Imam Ali (A) has also said:

"Love for the dunya is the head of all evil."

which means that if you are working for things with ONLY this life in mind, then your desires will take you over and you will commit one sin after another.

He also said:

"The love of the present world is the source of all misery."

Which means that if ALL your attention is focused on becoming great by whatever means (wealth, leadership, honour) in this world only, then we might get all our worldly wishes, but we will never really gain happiness.

"There are people who worship Allah for the sake of (fulfilling their) desires and that is the worship of business people. And verily there are those who worship Allah out of fear of Him, this is the worship of slaves. But there are those who worship out of thanks giving to Him, this being the worship of free minded people and is the best of worship"

No matter how rich we are we can never buy happiness or love.

That is when we realise that the richest thing of all is contentment, which we can only gain by following Allah's command and getting close to Him.