A publication circulating on social media and repeated by many preachers reads:
“My project: my children.
When I feel too lazy to perform voluntary acts of worship, I remember my children and the calamities of worldly life! I reflect on God’s words, ‘Their father was righteous’ [al-Kahf: 82], feel compassion for them and strive harder: sincere thinking.
Your successful project is your children. To make it succeed, follow what the noble Companion Abd Allah ibn Mas‘ud told us. When he prayed at night while his young son slept, he would look at him and say, ‘For your sake, my son’, reciting tearfully, ‘Their father was righteous.’
Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyab is reported to have looked at his son whenever he intended to perform night prayers and said, ‘I increase my prayers so God may make you righteous and protect you’, then wept while reciting, ‘Their father was righteous.’
Yes: this is the magic formula for our children’s righteousness. If a parent is a righteous example with a strong relationship with God, God protects their children and even their grandchildren. It is a magic formula and a ‘divine equation’.
In the story in Surat al-Kahf, God likewise preserved the treasure for the two boys because their seventh-generation ancestor was righteous.
This reminds me of a dear friend with a senior position in Kuwait who served on several government committees. Despite this, he set aside hours each day for charitable work. One day I asked, ‘Why not concentrate your activity on your government work, given your senior position?’
He looked at me and said, ‘I want to tell you a secret. I have more than six children, mostly boys, and fear they may go astray. I fall short in bringing them up. But I have observed among God’s blessings upon me that the more time I give my Lord, the more righteous my children become.’
I selected this for you because I love for you what I love for myself. May God make you happy in this world and the Hereafter and free you, your parents and those you love from the Fire.”
Comment
The immediate benefits and interests arising from acts of worship are numerous, great and innumerable. This reflects God’s mercy and wisdom in His creation and commands. Islamic law is not a set of obligations without effects in worldly life before the Hereafter. Its immediate effects are clear and evident, demonstrating the great merits of this religion and its superiority to other faiths.
While affirming this, we must distinguish between worship’s immediate and future benefits and fruits and the ends and objectives for which it was originally prescribed. Reversing these concepts creates confusion and intellectual disorder, resulting in distorted religious objectives and corrupted sincerity towards the Lord of the worlds.
Evidence of this confusion among many preachers, let alone ordinary people, is that someone preoccupied with immediate fruits and benefits selects what seems suitable to a desired interest, makes it the objective of worship, then presents it to people with exaggerated publicity, even turning it into a person’s life project.
Some make physical health the intended purpose of many acts of worship; some make social reform and developing the earth religion’s objectives; some regard morals as the reason for religions. These are among a long list of distorted ideas we call the “utilitarian interpretation of Islam”, which makes immediate benefits the “lens” through which religion is viewed. The correct interpretation of Islam, by contrast, regards all these benefits as means and fruits, not primary objectives. They help realise the original purpose: worshipping God with love, fear and hope, humbling oneself before Him to seek His pleasure, forgiveness and pardon.
The matter criticised here falls within what we have already described. Children becoming righteous through their parents’ righteousness is a fruit of righteous action, not an original end or objective. It should be encouraged and its importance praised within this understanding. It should not be placed under the title “My project is my children”. Rather: “My project is worshipping my Lord”; “My project is seeking my Lord’s pleasure”; “My project is attaining Paradise and escaping the Fire”. God says: “Say: I have been commanded to worship God, sincerely devoting religion to Him, (11) and commanded to be the first of those who submit. (12) Say: I fear, if I disobey my Lord, the punishment of a tremendous Day. (13) Say: God I worship, sincerely devoting my religion to Him.” [al-Zumar: 11–14.] He also says: “Whoever is drawn away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise has truly triumphed. Worldly life is only a deceptive enjoyment.” [Al ‘Imran: 185.] These are my real projects. Then, by God’s grace, favour and generosity, righteous children and descendants may be among their fruits. Thus Ibn Rajab, may God have mercy on him, qualified his wording when discussing this: “God may preserve a servant after death in their descendants because of their righteousness, as it was said concerning ‘Their father was righteous’: they were protected through their father’s righteousness.” Jami‘ al-‘Ulum wa-l-Hikam, 2/554.
One indication is that these fruits and benefits may fail to occur, whereas the true ends and objectives cannot fail. We therefore find a righteous man, indeed a prophet and messenger, whose son was unrighteous and even an unbeliever: “Noah called to his Lord: My Lord, my son is of my family; Your promise is true, and You are the most just of judges. (45) He said: Noah, he is not of your family; his conduct is unrighteous. Do not ask Me about what you have no knowledge of. I admonish you not to be among the ignorant. (46)” [Hud.] Even in the story of al-Khidr and Moses, peace be upon them, we find people whom God made righteous and protected because of their father’s righteousness – “Their father was righteous” [al-Kahf: 82] – and a wretched unbeliever who deserved to be killed although both parents were believers: “As for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared he would burden them with transgression and unbelief. (80) We wished their Lord to replace him with someone purer and closer in affection. (81)” [al-Kahf.]
Ibn Hajar al-Haytami said: “If you say: We may find a righteous descendant of sinners and the reverse; consider Noah’s son and Adam’s murderous son, blessings and peace be upon Adam, Noah and all prophets and messengers. I say: this, though infrequent, occurs for an inward reason known to God. Even if its only purpose were to demonstrate creatures’ inability, including the most perfect among them, to guide those closest to them: ‘You do not guide’ [al-Qasas: 56], meaning you do not bring guidance to whomever you love. Moreover, the verse ‘Let those fear who, if they left weak offspring behind them, would fear for them; let them be mindful of God and speak rightly’ (9) [al-Nisa’] indicates that descendants may sometimes be punished because of their ancestors. Even supposing the two cases equivalent, it follows only that descendants may sometimes benefit from their ancestors’ righteousness, not that this is a universal rule in either case. A person outwardly sinful may possess hidden righteous deeds for which God rewards them in their descendants. We must therefore adhere to His words: ‘Let those fear who, if they left weak offspring behind them, would fear for them; let them be mindful of God and speak rightly.’ (9)” Al-Zawajir ‘an Iqtiraf al-Kaba’ir, 1/23.
This yields an important lesson: all immediate benefits and fruits are not guaranteed. They may occur or fail to occur. They are not a “divine equation” as the publication claims. By contrast, we know with certainty that the deferred purposes and otherworldly ends must be realised and are intended primarily. All this serves great wisdom, so that worldly life, its interests, development and reform do not become the Muslim’s objective, much less the reason for their creation and obligations.
The expression “magic formula” in matters of creed and Islamic law is especially objectionable. Muslims should avoid it and not mix it with religious terminology.
2. An important point here is that whoever seeks these benefits primarily and makes them the objective usually does not attain them, because this undermines sincerity and the reality of worshipping God. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may God have mercy on him, says: “The point here is to explain what the Qur’an, Sunnah and consensus indicate: sincere devotion of religion to God is the foundation of all knowledge and guidance. Concerning the hadith [meaning ‘Whoever is sincere to God for forty days, springs of wisdom appear on their tongue’; it is weak: see al-Silsilah al-Da‘ifah (38)], a story has reached us whose chain I do not know to be established or not, although its intended meaning is correct. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali said: When this report reached me, I practised sincerity for forty mornings but found nothing. I mentioned this to a shaykh among those of spiritual knowledge, who said: My son, you were not sincere to God; you were sincere to wisdom. This meaning is true: God must be the primary object and intention; wisdom and other things follow. Something else must not be the primary objective, with intending God made a means to it.” Jami‘ al-Masa’il, 6/136.
3. Reports attributed to early scholars in this matter are not infallible. They do not establish a general rule or prove that the project and objective for which humanity was created is their children’s righteousness. That is the scholarly, methodological point. As to the reports’ authenticity, despite searching I found no trace of the report attributed to Ibn Mas‘ud, may God be pleased with him. The report from Sa‘id ibn al-Musayyab was narrated by al-Tha‘labi in his commentary, 17/232, through a chain containing an unknown narrator. Al-Tha‘labi is known for frequently narrating weak and fabricated reports, accepting whatever came his way. God knows best.
