Motives for Worship
God Has No Need of Our Worship, So Why Do We Worship Him?
Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, the true and manifest King, who illuminates His friends’ hearts with the light of guidance and certainty and strengthens their resolve with evident truth. He guides whom He wills by His mercy and lets whom He wills stray by His wisdom. God has the conclusive argument against all creation. I praise and thank my Lord; I believe in Him and do not disbelieve. I testify that there is no deity but God alone, without partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger, sent as mercy to the worlds. O God, send blessings and peace upon Your servant and Prophet Muhammad, his family, Companions, followers, and supporters until the Day of Judgement.
To proceed:
Among commonly repeated questions is: God has no need of His servants, our worship, or our deeds, so why do we worship Him?
This is not a modern question born of our age. It is an old question whose answer many theologians and philosophers have discussed. Yet one of the foremost reasons for its spread today is the materialist tendency and utilitarian view of religion: people’s satisfaction with worldly life and their contentment in it. The question is raised so those deviating in religion’s foundations, the half-educated, and evil preachers can rush to offer a materialist, utilitarian answer. Sometimes explicitly and often implicitly, they tell Muslims: God has no need of your worship; worship is merely for your benefit, interests, and advantage. You worship Him for your worldly interests. Prayer is psychological and physical exercise, zakat social solidarity, fasting health, and pilgrimage a political conference! Thus they sever the bond between servants and their Lord. The worshipper’s intention and will then turn only towards acts of worship and righteous deeds themselves, for his own interest and benefit.
The utilitarian interpretation of religion is pragmatic selfishness that looks only to the self, considers only the self’s interests, and seeks only the self’s benefit!
Why, then, do we worship our Lord when He has no need of our worship?
God says: {Whoever is grateful is grateful for his own good; whoever is ungrateful, my Lord is Self-Sufficient, Generous} [al-Naml: 40]. He says: {Whoever strives does so for his own good; God has no need of the worlds} [al-Ankabut: 6]. He says: {Moses said: If you and everyone on earth disbelieve, God is Self-Sufficient, Praiseworthy} [Ibrahim: 8]. He says: {Whoever disbelieves, God has no need of the worlds} [Al Imran: 97]. He says: {To God belongs whatever is in the heavens and earth. We instructed those given the Book before you, and you yourselves, to fear God. If you disbelieve, to God belongs whatever is in the heavens and earth; God is Self-Sufficient, Praiseworthy} [al-Nisa: 131].
God has no need of His servants, their worship, or their obedience. Nevertheless, there are very many reasons requiring worship. Scholars call these ‘motives for worship’: reasons moving a servant to fulfil the duty of worship, forces and incentives directing his intention, purpose, and will. They must be known, understood, and kept present in mind. Otherwise a person loses worship’s meaning and purpose, his intention becomes corrupt, his will and resolve weaken, and his heart’s compass deviates. If he worships God, he does so for a purpose other than the one God intends. He then gains nothing from his deeds; they are invalid and nullified: {Whoever desires worldly life and its adornment, We fully repay their deeds in it, and they will not be shortchanged. Those will have nothing in the Hereafter but the Fire. What they accomplished there is nullified, and their deeds are invalid} [Hud: 15-16].
The first motive:
A person should know that God deserves worship intrinsically. He is Lord of the worlds, alone in creating, owning, and directing them, possessing the most beautiful names and loftiest attributes: {He is God; there is no deity but Him. His is praise in this world and the Hereafter; His is judgement, and to Him you return} [al-Qasas: 70]. All this requires creation to worship Him for Himself. This is His right over them, as the Messenger said: “God’s right over His servants is that they worship Him and associate nothing with Him.”
The second motive:
The very existence of a creature requires it to worship its Creator. By its nature it is poor and in need of Him. God says: {People, you are in need of God; God is the Self-Sufficient, the Praiseworthy} [Fatir: 15]. Such is the human condition: a person needs worship. If he does not worship God, the true deity who created, provided for, and blessed him, he will worship stones and trees. If through atheism he worships nothing, he will worship his desires, submit to his passions, and suffer confusion, unrest, and loss. The heart has no tranquillity and the soul no happiness except through worshipping the supreme Creator alone, without partner.
May God have mercy on Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, who said:
Poverty is an attribute inseparable from my essence forever, as self-sufficiency is forever an attribute of His essence.
This is the condition of all creation; each will come to Him as a servant.
Whoever seeks fulfilment from other than his Creator is ignorant, unjust, associating partners, and rebellious.
The third motive:
We worship God because He is the Lord, Creator, Owner, and Disposer. Command is in His hand and judgement belongs to Him. He created us to worship Him and commanded our obedience. He deserves complete humility, submission, and obedience. God says: {People, worship your Lord who created you and those before you, so that you may become God-fearing; He made the earth a resting place and the sky a canopy for you, sent water from the sky, and brought forth fruits as provision for you. Do not knowingly set up equals to God} [al-Baqarah: 21-22].
The fourth motive:
He deserves perfect love because of the perfection of His essence, names, attributes, and actions. God possesses absolute, complete perfection in every respect, admitting no conceivable deficiency. So long as hearts’ innate dispositions and reason are sound, nothing can be more beloved to them than One of this nature. Since He is most beloved, loving Him necessarily entails worshipping and obeying Him, pursuing His pleasure, and exerting every effort in devotion and returning to Him. This is the most complete and strongest motive for servitude. Even supposing it were independent of commands, prohibitions, reward, and punishment, one must expend every effort and purify the heart for the true object of worship, deserving the most intense love. Our Lord says: {Some people take equals besides God, loving them as they love God; but believers are stronger in love for God} [al-Baqarah: 165]. The Messenger said: “Three qualities bring a person the sweetness of faith: that God and His Messenger are more beloved to him than anything else; that he loves someone only for God’s sake; and that he hates returning to unbelief after God has saved him from it as he hates being thrown into the Fire.”
The fifth motive:
We worship Him because He bestows the greatest blessings and beneficence upon us. He created and provided for us and gave us life, reason, discernment, hearing, and sight. He deserves utmost veneration. Sound minds testify that utmost veneration befits only the One from whom utmost blessing and beneficence proceed: God alone. {Whatever blessing you possess comes from God} [al-Nahl: 53]. {If you counted God’s blessings, you could not enumerate them; God is Forgiving, Merciful} [al-Nahl: 18]. Reminding people of God’s blessings is among the Qur’an’s proofs of worship’s obligation: {People, remember God’s favour upon you. Is there any creator besides God who provides for you from heaven and earth? There is no deity but Him. How then are you turned away?} [Fatir: 3]. That is, how are you diverted from truth after this explanation requiring gratitude for God’s blessings upon you?
The sixth motive:
Fulfilling gratitude for His successive blessings. Whoever does not respond to those blessings with thanks denies beneficence. God says: {He gave you of everything you asked Him. If you counted God’s blessings, you could not enumerate them. The human being is indeed deeply unjust and ungrateful} [Ibrahim: 34]. God therefore commands gratitude: {Believers, eat the good things We have provided and thank God, if it is Him you worship} [al-Baqarah: 172]. {Eat the lawful, good provision God has given you, and thank Him for His blessing, if it is Him you worship} [al-Nahl: 114]. {Remember Me and I will remember you; thank Me and do not be ungrateful} [al-Baqarah: 152]. He promises increased blessings if we respond with gratitude: {Your Lord proclaimed: If you are grateful, I will surely increase you; if you are ungrateful, My punishment is severe} [Ibrahim: 7].
Gratitude is among worship’s greatest motives. The two Sahih collections report that the Prophet stood in prayer until his feet swelled. He was asked: Do you do this when God has forgiven your past and future sins? He replied: “Should I not be a grateful servant?” He told Muadh: “By God, Muadh, I love you. Do not forget to say at the end of every prayer: O God, help me remember You, thank You, and worship You well.”
The seventh and eighth motives:
Fear and hope: fear of God’s punishment and torment, and hope for His reward and good recompense. These are attributes of God’s prophets and righteous servants: {They hastened to good deeds, called upon Us in hope and fear, and were humble before Us} [al-Anbiya: 90]. He says: {Their sides forsake their beds as they call upon their Lord in fear and hope, and they spend from what We have provided} [al-Sajdah: 16]. God commands all His servants: {Call upon your Lord humbly and privately; He does not love transgressors. Do not spread corruption on earth after it has been set right, and call upon Him in fear and hope. God’s mercy is near to those who do good} [al-Araf: 55-56].
The ninth and tenth motives:
Worshipping God to enter Paradise and escape the Fire. This is more specific than the preceding motives, because Muslims fear God and hope in Him in all their worldly and otherworldly affairs, including specifically seeking Paradise and refuge from the Fire. God says of Pharaoh’s wife: {When she said: My Lord, build me a house with You in Paradise} [al-Tahrim: 11]. He praises those who say: {Our Lord, we have believed, so forgive our sins and protect us from the punishment of the Fire} [Al Imran: 16]. The Messenger asked God for Paradise and sought refuge from the Fire in prayer and supplication, instructing us to do so in many hadiths. He asked a young Ansari: “What do you say in your prayer, my nephew?” The youth replied: I ask God for Paradise and seek refuge from the Fire. I do not understand your murmuring or Muadh’s. The Prophet said: “It is around that that we murmur.”
Let us conclude with a motive many people overlook:
The eleventh motive:
God loves to be worshipped, asked, and approached. He has no need of His servants or their worship and deeds, but He approves, loves, and rewards these: {If you disbelieve, God has no need of you, but He does not approve unbelief for His servants. If you are grateful, He approves it for you} [al-Zumar: 7]. {Believers, whoever among you turns back from his religion, God will bring a people He loves and who love Him} [al-Maidah: 54]. {God was pleased with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you beneath the tree} [al-Fath: 18]. The Prophet reported that God rejoices at His servant’s repentance. He loves believers, rejoices over those who repent, and is pleased with them through His mercy. Seeking God’s love, pleasure, and nearness is therefore among the greatest motives for worship. The Messenger said: “When God loves a servant, He calls Gabriel: I have loved so-and-so, so love him. He proclaims this in heaven, then love for him descends to earth. This is His saying: {Those who believe and do righteous deeds, the Most Merciful will appoint love for them} [Maryam: 96].”
These are worship’s motives, reasons, and grounds. Worship is God’s intrinsic right, and the creature is poor and compelled to need it. We worship God in love, fear, and hope; in gratitude for His blessings and favours; in obedience to His command; seeking Paradise; and seeking refuge from the Fire. The motives are many, very many, but we have mentioned the foremost.
O God, make us among those who receive Your affection, love, and pleasure. We ask You for Your pleasure and Paradise and seek refuge from Your wrath and the Fire. Help us remember You, thank You, and worship You well. Forgive our sins and remove our misdeeds. Set right our hearts’ corruption and remove their rancour. Make us rightly guided guides, neither astray nor misleading others. Forgive us, our parents, and those who taught and educated us, through Your favour, generosity, and giving. There is no deity but You. Amen, amen. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds.
Shaykh Abd al-Haqq al-Turkmani.
Originally a Friday sermon delivered on 19 Rabi al-Thani 1437 AH, corresponding to 29 January 2016 CE.