Hadith 1 Actions are by intentions Ameer al-Mu'minina Abi Hafsin Omar ibn al-Khattabi r.a. said I heard the Messenger of Allah s.a.w. say Only deeds are for intentions And only for every man what he wants So whoever his migration was to Allah and His Messenger, his migration was to Allah and His Messenger. And whoever his migration was to a life that afflicts her or a woman that makes her marry her, his migration was to what he migrated to. Umar ibn Khattab narrates, I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, say, Actions are according to intentions, and everyone will get what was intended.
Whoever migrates with an intention for Allah and His Messenger, the migration will be for the sake of Allah and His Messenger. And whoever migrates for worldly gain or to marry a woman, then his migration will be for the sake of whatever he migrated for. I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. And praise be to Allah and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah and upon his family and companions from behind. We ask Allah to make it a blessed Ramadan and to help us worship him the way we should.
In this beautiful hadith, the Prophet is bringing to our attention a very important point. principle, that what matters is not just what people see, what's on the outside, but also what's on the inside may play a major role and sometimes even a bigger role. So just like the body has deeds and the senses have deeds, and so the heart. The heart has deeds and sometimes the deeds of the heart would count even more than the deeds of the body.
And among those deeds is what this hadith is pointing toward, which is al-ikhlas, the sincerity, the purity of intention, which has been defined differently that the person seeks the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or the person does not seek the pleasure of other people. And in this hadith, it's talking about a very great action, which is the migration with the Prophet ﷺ. And as great as that would be, if it is not done with the proper... intention, it may not count. So the Prophet is saying that some people's migration with the Prophet, alayhi salatu wasalam, may count as something else.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also mentions in the Quran, وَقَدِمْنَا إِلَىٰ مَا عَمِلُوا مِنْ عَمَلٍ فَجَعَلْنَاهُ هَبَاءً مَنْثُورًا That we took everything that they did and we blew it away like dust. So the person may come on the day of judgment surprised, where's my prayer, where's my fasting, where are my actions, everything that I did, and he may not find any of that because it was not done sincerely for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And I think this becomes especially of significance for the Muslim worker, because the worst thing that could happen for the Muslim worker is for a person, or any activist, for the person to do a lot of things, but then for Allah not to accept any of that. And the problem with this mixed intention or the lack of sincerity is that it may get to the person's heart very smoothly that the person may not even recognize it. And for that reason, our scholars, may Allah reward them, have put together some indicators that would tell us whether, well, my intention or my heart is in the right place or not.
One of them is a great book by Sheikh Al-Qaradawi, which has been translated by the Mass Youth Department, and it's available to sell online on Amazon and in some of the other sources. And he has put some indicators that tell us whether our hearts are in the right place or not. I have that ikhlas, that sincerity or not. One of them, he said that the person who truly has ikhlas should not or does not really seek leadership.
And actually, if anything, he would prefer not to be in the leadership, but he would prefer the less visible actions because they're less likely to be contaminated by the show-off. Unless, of course, there's nobody else to do the job, then he has to step forward. As Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned in Surah Yusuf, He said, ''Place me on the treasures of the earth, for I am a knower.'' When Yusuf himself, despite his ikhlas, Allah says, من عبادنا, he was among al-mukhlaseen, beyond mukhlis, but mukhlas, completed for the sake of Allah, but yet still he said, اجعلني على خزائن الأرض إني حفيد عليم Put me in charge of the treasury, I am capable of doing a good job.
So here, but the person who has ikhlas, Basically he shuns the visibility. He does not prefer to be visible because again it is more likely to be contaminated by the show-off. The person who has ikhlas does not take everything for granted but accuses himself or herself of shortcomings. When the Prophet ﷺ mentioned the verse وَالَّذِينَ يُؤْتُونَ مَا آتَوْا قُلُوبُهُمْ وَجِلَةٌ أَنَّهُمْ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ رَاجِعُونَ that those that do what they do and there's a fear in their heart, Aisha said to him, alayhi salatu wasalam, is this talking about people that sin and there's a fear in their heart that they will be punished? And the Prophet said, no, this is talking about some people who commit...
good deeds, do good deeds, but there's a fear in their heart that it may not be accepted for different reasons. Another indicator, the person who has ikhlas will do what pleases Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and not necessarily what pleases the people. Now of course, sometimes they both go in the same direction. same direction.
But sometimes they fork. Which one would the person actually choose? Which direction would the person choose?
The person who has ikhlas will always choose that which pleases Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Another indicator, the person who has ikhlas will not be discouraged by the obstacles along the way, even though they might be many. The person who has ikhlas, because he's doing it for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the person who has ikhlas will be happy whoever does anything for the benefit of Islam, the Muslims, or humanity in general.
We don't say that. that unless I'm the one doing it, it does not count. So these are some of the indicators, very briefly, about the person, whether she has ikhlas or not.
But one thing which is really important, I think, to balance this presentation is to make sure that this does not go to the other extreme, whereby the person will destroy his potential out of fear of lack of ikhlas, that this fear of riyah, of show-off, or of lack of ikhlas, will take the person actually into, will lead the person into stopping the actions completely. This is wrong. This should be... not be, the action should still continue.
You know for everything that we do there are two dimensions, there's the action itself and there's the intention of what goes. Behind that action and for that action to be accepted it has to be sound at both levels However, if I have a problem with my intention I Do not penalize the action the action should still continue meanwhile I work on my intention and here sometimes we over analyze things and as a result we stop you That's what is still a value to the action itself the Prophet alayhi As-salatu was-salam said if it's the hour the end of times and you're holding a seedling He said if you can go ahead and plant it you'll have reward for doing that well who's going to benefit from that? well that's the point the Prophet is indicating to us that there's a value of the action itself and in the famous story of the prostitute that gave water to a thirsty dog and as a result all of her sins were forgiven now the Prophet didn't say that she had a specific intention or what not but she did something that she felt actually has to be done and as a result her sins were forgiven that's why the beautiful verse in Surah Al-Hujurat where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah SWT says, قَالَتِ الْأَعْرَابُ آمَنَّا قُلْ لَمْ تُؤْمِنُوا وَلَكِنْ قُولُوا أَسْلَمْنَا وَلَمَّا يَدْخُلِ الْإِيَّامِ After he mentioned the difference between Iman and Islam, and some people don't have Iman in their heart, but Allah said, still, so long as you obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not waste any of your good deeds. So, so long as a person is following the guidance of Allah, and his messenger, then the reward is guaranteed from Allah SWT. Another important thing to keep in mind is that there are certain situations where the intention may take a secondary role of secondary importance.
The first one... is what it has to do with avoiding prohibitions. You know, the prohibitions, the haram actions, have to be avoided no matter what, for whatever reason. Even if the intention is not perfect and ideal, the person has to avoid the haram.
Even if the person is leaving haram for the sake of people, that should be fine, that should be okay. That's why the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, you be with the group, you don't travel by yourself, because there's this level of accountability in front of other people. So the prohibitions have to be avoided. The second... important situation is what it has to do with the collective Islamic work.
If I'm involved with the collective Islamic work, then here I cannot... The intention takes a secondary role. What becomes more important is the obedience in the Islamic work and the trust.
And that's why here a great example in that regard is what happened in the Battle of Badr, where the Prophet, alayhi as-salatu was-salam, when he found out that it's going to be a battle, he asked the companions, Ashiru alayhi ayyuhannas, what do you think I should be doing? doing. And of course, everybody eventually obeyed him and then went into the battle.
But the point here is that not everybody wanted to fight. And Allah says that in Surah Al-Anfal when He says, that basically, you would prefer to meet the caravan and not the army of Quraysh. But still, despite the fact that they did not want that, they obeyed the Prophet, and as such, their obedience became more important than their sincerity.
So here in that situation, that becomes ... comes of secondary importance. But again, any action for it to be perfect and it has to be... sound at both levels. At the level of the intention, as indicated in this beautiful hadith, and at the level of the action itself, as indicated in the fifth hadith, we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us ikhlas, sincerity in actions, and in words.
وَاجْزَاكُمُ اللَّهُ خَيْرٌ وَالْحَمْدُ لَهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ