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Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wa salatu wa salamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen Muhammad wa rasool Allahi sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahibu salam. Tasleeman kathiran kathira.
And then, my brothers and sisters, we have been talking about the importance of the niyyah, the importance of the intention, and the importance of ikhlas wal niyyah, which is the sincerity of the intention. This is absolutely critical and as I mentioned to you in the hadith yesterday in Sahih Muslim, Allah specifically mentioned the three people who even though on the face of it they would have done not just good things but the best of things. Yet, because their intention was corrupted, Allah will order that they should be put into the hellfire. We ask Allah for protection from this. One is a martyr, one is a qari and alim and the other one is a philanthropist, a generous person who has wealth spent in the path of Allah, but it is not accepted because the intention was impure.
Somebody asked one of the Salafi, “Who is a sincere person? Who is the person who has Ikhlas-un-Nihil?” I see the response. He said a sincere person is one who conceals his good actions just as he conceals his evil actions.
Ajib Subhanallah, if you think about this, how we live now today in a completely upside down world. Totally upside down world where we advertise and tell the whole world about our actions. Totally opposite. It. He says a sincere person is one who conceals his good actions and in the same way as he would conceal his evil actions. If he did something wrong, he would conceal it. He conceals something good in the same way. That is the pinnacle of sincerity because if you have done the action only for the sake of Allahﷻ, who needs to know? Allah. Allah knows already. So if you tell even one other person, you’re telling one person who does not need to know. So why are you telling? If I did my action for the sake of Allah, only Allah needs to know, nobody else. So if I tell anyone else, if I tell my own mother, my father, I’m not talking about but Facebook and all, forget that. Even my own closest and dearest people, even if I tell even one, why am I telling them? They don’t need to know. What does that person have to do with this action? Are you looking for a reward from that person? Then your action is gone.
Then your action is gone. If you’re not looking for a reward from that person, why are you telling them?
Then they asked him, “What is the pinnacle of sincerity? What is the peak of sincerity?” He said, when you detest being praised by people. When you detest, not just dislike, you detest being praised by people. This is the pinnacle of sincerity.
A Sahabi, R.A., once asked Rasulullah ﷺ whether he would be rewarded for an action that he performed secretly, but somehow people learned about it, and he felt pleased about this. Sometimes when you read the Seerah, and that’s one of the many reasons why we should study the Seerah, when you see the questions that the Sahaba asked Rasulullah ﷺ, you see the Ihsan of the Sahaba on us. Because without these questions, we would not have known these intricacies of Deen. And these are such beautiful questions. So, he is asking Rasulullah s.a.w., will I be rewarded for an action which I did secretly but somehow people learnt about it and that made me happy.
Rasulullah s.a.w. said that he would receive double the reward. He would receive double the reward. One reward for performing the action secretly. So his whole intention that nobody should try to nobody should find out that itself will give him a reward and the other for this becoming apparent without his wishing for it or making any effort to make it public the two rewards one reward is for doing the action secretly and the second reward for not doing anything to make it public for not even wishing that But it happened. May Allah have mercy on us. We do the action, we put it on Facebook, we put it on Instagram, we put it everywhere, all over the place, then we go and check how many people liked it, how many people, what is the interaction. SubhanAllah. Ajib. May Allah have mercy on us. I’m not talking about, for example, teachers who are teaching and then they put their course content for their class in whichever meeting that’s a different issue that they are doing it for a particular reason for the people to reach it and so on I am talking about generally when we do this and then the whole issue here is not the physical action did I check did I not check issue here is your heart are you concerned about that maybe you got a million views but you might have somebody who has a million views they don’t even know about it they don’t care they don’t monetize that they don’t try to make money out of that Then, Inshallah, this person’s niyyah is secure. Despite that, people come to know, Alhamdulillah, it did not happen because of this person wishing that.
So, the explanation that has been given here is this. Performing actions secretly denotes sincerity, for which a person will be rewarded, Inshallah. When the action becomes apparent, and this is the key thing here is, the action became apparent, not because this person wanted it or not because this person made some effort, it became apparent for whatever reason, without his control. Then others are also encouraged to emulate this action and therefore, the person is rewarded also by the mercy of Allah . But the key thing here is, did you want this to happen? And only Allah and you know this. And that’s the reason why this sincerity is such an important thing and such a critical thing because there is no third person who is going to vouch for this. Between Allah and his slave. We know the hadith in Muslim where Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he said whoever initiates or initiated a good practice in Islam will receive the reward of whoever practices the same thereafter. So if you start something good or if you tell somebody to do something good and that person is doing it, then Inshallah, you will receive the reward of that person’s action and that person also will receive the full reward for that. But you will also receive the reward because he is doing it because of your initiative. And then somebody else learns from that, and you will get that reward also. Somebody else learns from that, you get that reward also, and this will continue as long as Allah wishes.
And however, the same thing also applies to something evil. So this is very important for us to understand. This is the reason why bid’at are such an evil thing. When you start something which is shirk, which is some kind of corruption of deen, and somebody does that, and then other people do it, and so on, then you get the punishment in the negative reward of all of those people. And just because you started this with a good intention doesn’t mean anything. The biggest danger of Bida’at is that every Bida’at starts with a good intention. Right? Somebody who goes to a grave, for example, and worships there, goes and makes sajda, goes and makes tawaf to the grave, People do all this and more. Why are they doing it? They are doing it to honour the person in the grave. Here is so-and-so, we love him, we honour him, he was a great person, so we want to respect him. So, we do all this. All of that amounts to shirk. Because you are doing it, because you are an influential person, somebody sees you and they also go and do it. That’s why it’s very important, especially for people who are seen as important in society, to be very careful about what they do. Because you might do something, but somebody takes you as a Dalil for doing the same thing. If you are doing something wrong, somebody says, no, no, but you see, if it was wrong, so and so would not have done it. So you are now the proof for that person for doing something wrong.
I was talking about a couple of speeches of mine on ostentatious weddings. So I was telling somebody about the evil of ostentatious weddings, of spending colossal amounts of money on all kinds of show, because all of this is israf, it is all israf and Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala cursed the people who make israf. إِنَّ الْمُبَذِّرِينَ كَانُوا إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينَ (Inna al-mubadhirina kanu ikhwan ash-shayateen). Allah said the people who do israf, definitely they are the brothers of shaitan.
So I was telling someone, that person says I went to this wedding and he gives me the names, specific names of people who are big people in this city, big in deen and also big in dunya. Gholama heads of institutions he tells me so and so was there so and so was there so and so was there so and so you are the only person who was not there and you are saying it is wrong if it is wrong how is it all these people were there what is the answer so that is why it is even more important so don’t say no no I am going there to correct them you are not going to correct you are going there to eat the biryani simple It’s simple. You’re going there so that you will be known. Oh, I went to this big shadi, this big you know, wedding of this big family. So I was people think oh, must be a this person also must be a big person or they would not have been invited. They were invited there because there were some significant people. If you want to correct did you correct? You didn’t correct. You didn’t ask anybody. You didn’t say anything. How will you correct in the middle of that thing anyway?
I’m telling you some replies People ask me, “Why did you go?” No, I went for reform. What reform did you do? You went without eating anything. What reform did you do? So it’s very important, it’s extremely important for us to ensure that we do the right things and we do them for the right reasons because we are answerable to Allahﷻ. And Allahﷻ considers the intention.
In conclusion, let me say, there are three conditions for any deed to be accepted. We must make sure that these three conditions are met. The first condition is that the deed must be done sincerely for the pleasure of Allah alone. Ikhlaa Sunniya, sincerity of intention, this is the first condition. Second condition is that that action must be in accordance with the Sharia. You cannot do something with the intention of pleasing Allah, but the action itself is against the Sharia. For example, you might say, I want to feed poor people, sincerely for the pleasure of Allah. Alhamdulillah. Is that a good deed? Yes. But when the time comes to feed the poor people you are feeding them things for example you are along with the food you are also giving them giving them toddy or you are giving them alcohol and if you say what kind of thing why are you giving them alcohol these are all not Muslim people these are non-Muslim people they appreciate and if you think I am exaggerating I know for a fact that there are weddings in this our great city where alcohol is served cocktail parties and weddings where alcohol is served by Muslims so I am not exaggerating they are not doing that cocktail party for the pleasure of Allah but I am saying somebody is doing this to say that I am doing sadaqah I am doing khairat I am helping feeding poor people but because they drink alcohol they are not Muslims I am also serving them alcohol. Is this acceptable? No. Because for a Muslim to have anything to do with alcohol, to buy, to sell, to transport, to have a bar in his hotel, you know, in any way, Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, do not even be in the same room where alcohol is being served. Forget about it. He said, don’t even be in the same room. So if you go to a restaurant, please make sure that there is no alcohol there. If you are going to a restaurant where there is Where there is a bar, where there is alcohol, this is haraam for you. Don’t go there.
So, the action, sincerity is there, but the action itself is against the Sharia. And the third condition is that the action must be in accordance with the Sunnah or at least not against the Sunnah. Normally, if it is in accordance with the Sharia, it will be in accordance with the Sunnah, but check anyhow. So, these are critical requirements as far as good deeds are concerned. So, we ask Allahﷻ to give us ikhlas-un-niyyah and to give us the tawfiq to study the religion and to check with people who know. Even if you don’t know everything, you ask somebody who knows before you go and do the action. And this applies to the two places where most of this happens, which is either there is contamination and corruption of the Niyah or the action itself is against the Shariah. The two places where this happens most often, one is weddings and the other one is death ceremonies after somebody dies. For example, after the third day, on the third day, we call everyone Ziyarat. Ziyarat in Arabic means meeting somebody. One of my friends, he invited people, he said, “Please come tomorrow for my Chahal Loom Dawat.” I said, how can you have a Chahal Loom Dawat? You are alive. He said, nahi Hyderabad mein Chahal Loom ki biryani sabse achi rahi rahi thi. He said, satya main pehle ch kaale to.
Where did all this come from? Did Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam buried all his children except Sayyidah Fatima Fatimah Zahra all his children died in front of him and he buried all of them on the third day did he have this ziyarat did he have some Khatmul Quran or something on the third day on the fortieth day did he have one Chahlum Dawah did he say have one Waleemah for Chahlum what did he say then where did you take it Really, I mean, these are things which you should think about, no? This is where the biggest problems happen with this. Weddings and so-called death ceremonies. Alhamdulillah, Islam has given us a beautiful, clean method of living our lives. If we live it like that, then there is no expense. What do you need to do in a wedding? You fix up the marriage between the husband and the wife and so on. After that, nikah in the masjid. What does that cost? Zero. Nothing. Then have a wali maa. Call a few people, whoever you know. Serve them simple food. Hoga? Hoga nahi. That’s not enough for us. We must have one huge thing for which you don’t have the money. So you borrow that money on interest. Who are you showing? Who is impressed?
I remind myself when you please let us the purpose of Islam is to be implemented in our lives. It’s not simply to sit and listen to bai’ans and this and that and go home. No. Implement in our lives. Every time there is a decision point in the life, please remember ikhlaa sunniya is the number one thing. And then the action must be according to the Sharia no innovations and no additions and subtractions and stuff make it clean keep it clean Inshallah Allah Ta’ala will reward us wasallallahu ala nabiyyul kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajmain bi rahmatullahi wa barakatuh