Saif Morad – The Importance of Sincere Intention. How regular habits can become good deeds

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.