Saif Morad – The Importance of Sincere Intention. How regular habits can become good deeds
AI: Summary ©
The importance of intentions and being sincere in actions for achieving rewards in life is emphasized. Consent is a crucial factor in achieving reward, and individuals can only obtain reward based on their intentions. Handling intentions and turning them into worship activities is key to achieving desired levels of worship. It is crucial to ask oneself before doing anything and finding their desired level, while constantly rectifying their intentions and asking oneself before turning their daily activities into acts of worship.
AI: Summary ©
My dear brothers and sisters. What's going on?
May Allah
bless us with the best in this world
and the next.
In this video, we're gonna be talking about
the importance
of
intention,
the importance of being sincere to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, and we'll go over a hadith
which is considered to be
half of our religion.
Said,
That indeed
actions are by intentions,
and verily a person
emigration is for the sake of Allah and
his messenger.
And whoever migrates for the sake of a
woman or for any worldly purpose,
then they will have what they emigrated for.
This hadith
by some of the scholars, they consider this
to be half of our religion.
Why? Because in order for any good deed
to be accepted,
it must meet 2 conditions,
that it is sincere for the sake of
Allah
and that it is
intention
actions,
the reward for any action is based on
the intention behind it,
and a person will get from the action
that which they intended.
And many of these scholars, they began their
books
with this hadith to remind us of the
importance of being sincere to Allah
because if an action is not sincere,
then Allah
has no need for it.
It comes in a hadith Qudsi that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala said
that I am
the most self sufficient. I don't need any
partners. Whoever does an action and associates partners
with me in it, then I leave him
in the action, meaning there's no reward for
this person in that action.
This is why it is very important for
us to always check our intention
before we do any act of Ibadah,
before we do any act of worship,
that who are we doing this for,
and what do we expect from this? Do
we expect reward from Allah
for it, or are we just doing it
out of habit?
And the intention is what distinguishes
between habits
and worship, because a person can just go
and pray, and they just do this habitually.
It's part of their culture, like, you know,
I gotta pray. But another person who has
the intention in his heart, they understand why
they're praying, that they're gonna stand in front
of Allah
expecting reward from Allah
the difference between these two people
is like the difference between the heavens and
the earth because one person is conscious of
why they are worshiping Allah,
and the other person is just doing it
out of habit.
And the intention also differentiates between
the acts of worship itself.
For example, it differentiates between the obligatory prayer
and the voluntary prayer. When a person stands
in front of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to
pray
the obligatory prayer, the intention is there that
they're praying this prayer. When they're praying their
sunnah, for example, the voluntary prayer,
then they have the intention for that,
and the prophet
told the companions
that the thing that I fear for you
the most is
the minor shirk, and they inquire that what
is it, You Rasulullah?
The prophet
said, showing off.
Shaitan will utilize every opportunity
to come and ruin our intention,
to try to put things in there that
will cause us to leave certain action because
we fear we're shown off,
and anything that is done for somebody else
other than Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is considered
shirk.
And if we leave off an action for
the sake of other people, because we might
think that this person is looking at me,
this is considered showing off.
It is extremely important for us as believers
to always check our intention,
that we do things only for the sake
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
It doesn't matter who's looking at us.
If I intend to read the Quran, it
doesn't matter who's looking at me,
I go ahead with that action. We do
things for the sake of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
because that is the condition for it to
be accepted, that it is done sincerely for
the sake of Allah
and it is done the right way, because
a person can be extremely sincere,
but they don't do it the right way,
that means the action is not accepted.
For example, a person
might wanna pray 4 rakah for fajr instead
of 2, and they're sincere because 4 is
better than 2, let me pray more,
but no, because we learned that fajr is
only 2 rakah.
Increasing the amount of units
does not make the deed accepted. In the
same way, if a person
is doing actions the right way, but they're
not doing it sincerely for the sake of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, this action is also
rejected. And another beautiful thing about this hadith
is we can turn
our daily activity, things that we do on
a normal basis like eating, drinking, sleeping, going
out, we can turn these acts into worship
by our intention.
How, you might ask?
That let's take, for example, 2 students in
medical school.
1 is studying so that they can secure
their future because doctors get paid very well,
So they wanna live a good comfortable life,
and this person will get that. That's what
their intention is, so they'll get that. They're
not sinning nor are they getting any reward
for it. But another person,
his intention or her intention is that I
am doing this to help the Muslims, to
help people,
and I'm doing this for the sake of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to help the people
around me.
Every single moment that they're spending and studying
and learning and applying, they're getting rewarded for
it because their intention behind it was to
earn the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So we can turn even these daily activities
into acts of worship just by the intention,
by intending to seek Allah's pleasure,
and what is the end goal? What level
do we want to get? What should we
aspire towards?
Hassan al Basri said that I didn't look
at anything,
nor did I speak,
nor did I move towards something,
except that I asked myself,
is this in obedience of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala or in disobedience? Why am I doing
it for it?
What am I doing? Who am I doing
it for? And if it was sincere and
it was for the sake of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, I would move towards it. And
if it wasn't, then I wouldn't go towards
it. And if it wasn't, then I wouldn't
go towards it. So this is the level
that
we should aim towards. So if this is
the end goal, how do I start? Well,
this is today's exercise. Number 1,
to always ask ourselves before we do anything,
especially
the acts of worship,
that what am I doing,
who am I doing it for, and why
am I doing it? What am I doing?
I'm about to pray salah. Who am I
doing for Allah
Why am I doing it? Because Allah
commanded us to pray
5 times a day,
and every time we check our intention,
we become more aware.
And number 2, let's try to take one
thing that we do on a daily basis,
eating, drinking, studying, for example, reading,
and try to turn it into an act
of worship.
Try to get good deeds behind this,
and it can be something simple as spending
time with our family.
The prophet
told one of the companions
that you do not spend anything from your
wealth
seeking Allah's pleasure except that you are rewarded
for it.
Even the morsel, the food that you put
in the mouth of your spouse
could be an act of worship because we
seek Allah's pleasure behind it, and this is
gonna take practice. Now what's the intention behind
it?
But the more we try,
the easier it becomes, and when we work
on our intention, we can turn these daily
habits that we do into acts of worship.
We could be getting good deeds 247,
but it's gonna take time. It's gonna take
practice
to understand why we're doing this and how
we can transform these actions into acts of
worship. So may Allah
grant us the ability to be sincere to
him
and to slowly
change our habits into acts of worship by
rectifying our intention. Until next time.