A response to “The foremost purpose is not accumulating good deeds”
A statement by Shaykh Ubayd ibn Salim al-Umari
Shaykh Abd al-Haqq al-Turkmani
In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful.
Praise belongs to God, Lord of the worlds. I bear witness that there is no deity but God alone, without partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. May God bless him, his family and Companions, and grant them abundant peace.
A religious teacher, preacher or exhorter may make and elaborate a statement with good intentions, without noticing its dangerous results, corrupt implications or harmful effect on listeners. I think this happened with a widely circulated statement entitled “The foremost purpose is not accumulating good deeds,” excerpted from a lecture by Shaykh Dr Ubayd ibn Salim al-Umari, may God preserve and guide him. Some brothers understood it as diminishing or belittling worship and outward deeds and asked me to comment. The questions multiplied, so I wished to clarify this important matter in this response. It will be long. Students must be patient with knowledge. Our publications seek neither publicity nor media impact through two- or three-minute clips.
The shaykh says:
“We must know that the aim is not accumulating good deeds, but the effects of deeds upon hearts. Scholars therefore say that the heart’s deeds are more important than bodily deeds: awe, fear, turning to God, brokenness before Him, repentance, sincerity, reverence, approaching the Lord and repentance. These take precedence over praying eleven or twenty-three units of tarawih, performing umrah in Ramadan or remaining seated until sunrise. These are important deeds and means, but not the intended aim. They are means. The aim is reaching the heart and striving to work upon it.”
I say: this is seriously problematic in making acts of worship mere means and the heart’s deeds the intended aim.
We have three matters here:
First, the heart’s deeds: intention, sincerity, love, fear, hope and reverence.
Second, the act itself.
Third, the effects and results arising from performing that act.
We must recognise each matter’s proper rank and due. The first, intention and the heart’s deeds, undoubtedly precedes all, both in importance and in time. Intention and sincerity are conditions that must precede an act and accompany it to completion. Making the heart’s deeds the aim produced by the act is mistaken in this respect: they already precede and accompany it. The Messenger said: “Actions are only by intentions.”
The second, the act itself, is intended in its own right, as I shall explain, God willing; this is the purpose of this response. Such language suggests some diminution or belittlement of outward action.
We shall return to the third matter, God willing.
The shaykh then says:
“When Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah was asked which deeds are best, what did he say? Of course, Ibn Taymiyyah is not a lawgiver or like the Prophet, able to tell people which deeds are best. But he gave an exemplary answer, deserving to be written in gold and carefully noticed. Which deeds are best? He said: the deed in which you find your heart. That is the best deed for you personally. The aim is not many deeds, but discovering what affects your heart and striving in that deed to reform it: what brings fear, preparation for death, awe of God and awareness of Him privately and publicly? What act reforms your heart? The aim is not many deeds.”
I say: this unrestricted statement is incorrect. It opens the door to obsessive doubts and anxiety among servants striving to perform worship and righteous deeds as God prescribed. Such words may trouble them: “If my work were righteous, I would find its effect in my heart.” In reality, whoever performs an act sincerely for God with conscious intention has fulfilled the religious purpose. That suffices.
I have not found the statement attributed to Ibn Taymiyyah that the best deed is the one in which you find your heart. God knows whether the quotation is authentic. What I have found does not support this meaning. In al-Wasiyyah al-Sughra he says:
“As for your question about the best deeds after obligations, this differs according to people’s abilities and what suits their circumstances. No comprehensive, detailed answer can apply to everyone. But something approaching consensus among those knowledgeable of God and His command is that constant remembrance of God is generally the best occupation for a servant.”
After citing evidence of remembrance’s merit, he says:
“Everything spoken by the tongue and conceived by the heart that brings one near God, learning and teaching knowledge, enjoining right and forbidding wrong, is remembrance of God. Whoever pursues beneficial knowledge after fulfilling obligations, or sits learning or teaching what God and His Messenger call understanding, engages in some of the best remembrance. Reflecting on this, you will find little substantial difference among the early scholars’ statements about the best deeds.” Majmu‘ al-Fatawa, 10/660–661.
Elsewhere he says: “The best striving and righteous deed is what most obeys the Lord,” meaning greatest compliance with His prescription and command, “and most benefits the servant. If it harms them or prevents something more beneficial, it is not righteous.” Al-Fatawa al-Kubra, 2/138; Majmu‘ al-Fatawa, 22/300.
The decisive judgement comes from the many hadiths in which the Prophet answered questions about the best deeds, including:
In the two Sahih collections, Ibn Mas‘ud says: “I asked the Prophet which deed God loves most. He said: ‘Prayer at its proper time.’ I asked: ‘Then what?’ He said: ‘Kindness to parents.’ I asked: ‘Then what?’ He said: ‘Striving in God’s cause.’”
In the two Sahih collections, Abu Hurayrah reports that the Messenger was asked which deed is best. He answered: “Faith in God and His Messenger.” Asked what follows, he said: “Striving in God’s cause,” then: “An accepted Hajj.”
In the two Sahih collections, Abu Dharr says: “I asked the Prophet which deed is best. He said: ‘Faith in God and striving in His cause.’ I asked: ‘Which people are best to free from slavery?’ He said: ‘Those highest in price and most valued by their owners.’ I asked: ‘If I cannot do that?’ He said: ‘Help someone in need or work for someone unable to do it.’ I asked: ‘If I cannot?’ He said: ‘Spare people your harm. That is charity you give to yourself.’”
What do these hadiths teach us?
First, the Prophet directed people to action, not to examining its effects upon hearts or conduct. Worship and righteous deeds undoubtedly improve and purify hearts and correct conduct. But exaggerating these effects and expressly saying the action is unintended and merely a means opens people to obsessive doubts and contradicts the Prophet’s method of teaching the community its best deeds. His method is the most knowledgeable, wise and upright.
Second, they teach reverence for outward deeds, especially worship and foremost obligatory acts. They are esteemed and intended in themselves as devotion, closeness, obedience and compliance with God’s law, believing He wants, loves and approves them, and seeking the immense reward attached to these acts themselves.
Anyone examining the Book and Sunnah knows with certainty that the Wise Lawgiver independently intends outward deeds, after the condition of intention and sincerity.
Consider God’s detailed practical rules for fasting in al-Baqarah: when it begins and ends, what is forbidden and permitted. He then says: “These are God’s limits, so do not approach them. Thus God clarifies His signs for people so that they may become mindful of Him” (2:187).
Al-Tabari interprets mindfulness in fasting as the act itself: “‘So that you may become mindful’ means that you avoid eating, drinking and sexual intercourse during it. He says: I imposed fasting and abstention from what would otherwise break your fast, so that you avoid what invalidates it during its time.” Tafsir al-Tabari, 3/156, Dar ‘Alam al-Kutub edition. Mindfulness consists in performing what God prescribed and imposed.
God mentions Hajj’s outward acts, circumambulation, walking between Safa and Marwah and sacrificial offerings, in Surat al-Hajj, saying: “Whoever honours God’s rites, that comes from the mindfulness of hearts.” The source repeats: “Whoever honours God’s rites, that comes from the mindfulness of hearts.” He then says: “We have made the sacrificial camels among God’s rites for you.”
Al-Tabari says: “‘Whoever honours God’s rites’ refers to every act or place God made a sign of His creation’s pilgrimage rites.” Tafsir al-Tabari, 3/156.
After explaining some Hajj and umrah rulings in al-Baqarah, God says: “Be mindful of God and know that God is severe in punishment” (2:196).
After divorce rulings He says: “Whoever transgresses God’s limits, those are the wrongdoers” (2:229), and: “These are God’s limits, which He clarifies for people who know” (2:230).
After inheritance rulings in al-Nisa’, He says: “These are God’s limits. Whoever obeys God and His Messenger, He will admit to gardens beneath which rivers flow, remaining therein; that is the great success. Whoever disobeys God and His Messenger and transgresses His limits, He will admit to a Fire, remaining therein, with humiliating punishment” (4:13–14).
Concerning expiation for zihar in al-Mujadilah: “Whoever cannot find the means must fast two consecutive months before they touch one another. Whoever cannot do so must feed sixty poor people. This is so you may believe in God and His Messenger. These are God’s limits, and unbelievers have painful punishment” (58:4).
At the opening of al-Talaq, after waiting-period rulings: “These are God’s limits. Whoever transgresses God’s limits has wronged themselves.”
Someone may object that divorce, zihar, waiting periods and inheritance concern practical laws rather than worship. Yes, but Muslims must observe them in obedience and submission to God. In this respect they are worship, indeed among its noblest forms. Moreover, if such stern warnings attach to rulings not exclusively devotional, what of purely devotional rules such as prayer and fasting?
In the Sunnah, the Prophet gives great attention to outward acts and commands imitation: “Pray as you have seen me pray,” and concerning Hajj: “Take your rites from me.”
Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrate from Abu Hurayrah that a man entered the mosque, prayed and greeted the Prophet. He returned the greeting and said: “Go back and pray, for you have not prayed.” This happened three times. The man said: “By the One who sent you with truth, I can do no better; teach me.” He said: “When you stand for prayer, proclaim God’s greatness, recite what you can of the Qur’an, bow until settled in bowing, rise until upright, prostrate until settled in prostration, then rise until settled in sitting. Do this throughout your prayer.” This wording is Ahmad’s (9635).
This authentic report, known as the hadith of the man who prayed badly, explicitly shows that outward acts, called mere formalities, appearances, habits, customs or rituals by some ignorant people today, are intended by the Wise Lawgiver. Performing them as He explained belongs to worship’s core and reality.
Al-Bukhari narrates that Hudhayfah saw a man who did not complete his bowing and prostration. When he finished, Hudhayfah said: “You have not prayed.” The narrator thinks he added: “Were you to die, you would die upon something other than Muhammad’s Sunnah.”
Al-Bukhari and Muslim narrate from A’ishah that the Messenger said: “Whoever introduces into this affair of ours something not belonging to it, it is rejected.” Muslim’s wording also states: “Whoever performs an act not in accordance with our affair, it is rejected.”
Ibn Taymiyyah makes an important statement about following and obeying the Messenger, warning that extreme Sufis’ claim that obligations lapse is explicit unbelief:
“Whoever does not affirm what he reports and commit to obeying what he obliges and commands, in inward matters of hearts and outward bodily acts, is not a believer, much less a friend of God.”
“Among God’s most beloved deeds and greatest obligations are the five prayers at their times. They are the first deeds for which a servant is called to account on the Day of Resurrection. God imposed them Himself on the night of the ascension, placing no intermediary between Himself and Muhammad. They are Islam’s pillar, without which it cannot stand, and religion’s most important affair.”
“Whoever believes they cease to bind certain knowing, unveiling or arrived shaykhs, or that God has special people for whom prayer is not obligatory because they have reached the holy presence or dispensed with it through something more important or preferable, or that the aim is presence of heart with the Lord…”
[Notice this phrase: it becomes an entry to deviation when this aspect is emphasised while outward action is belittled.]
“…or that prayer entails dispersion, so a servant gathered with God does not need prayer; or that prayer’s aim is knowledge, so once attained prayer is unnecessary; or that the aim is extraordinary phenomena, flying in the air, walking on water, filling vessels with water from air, draining water to extract hidden treasures, or killing someone hated through demonic states, after which prayer is unnecessary; or that God has special men who need not follow Muhammad, dispensing with him as al-Khidr dispensed with Moses; or that everyone who experiences unveiling, flies or walks on water is a friend of God whether they pray or not; or that prayer is accepted without purification; or that the distraught, self-induced ecstatics and madmen in graveyards, refuse heaps, latrines, inns, rubbish places and elsewhere, who neither perform ablution nor obligatory prayers, are God’s friends: whoever believes this is an unbeliever and apostate by agreement of Islam’s imams, even if personally ascetic and devout.” Al-Fatawa al-Kubra, 1/182.
All scholars of Islamic law, across sects and schools, affirm these statements regarding reverence for law and adherence to its rulings. Only esotericists and heretics advocating the abolition of laws and rulings disagree.
This suffices to highlight the foundation of following the Prophet and revering outward deeds as intended acts of worship in themselves. I believe it is necessarily known in religion and generally familiar to every Muslim, although people differ greatly in knowledge, practice and freedom from innovations. Even some innovators who contradict the Sunnah through ignorance, desire, interpretation or imitation carefully ascertain sunset before breaking their fast, recognising, like every Muslim, the necessity of observing outward religious rulings.
The speaker surely knows this, God willing. I do not suggest he intends or promotes the mistaken meaning. But because some words suggest belittling outward acts, clarification is necessary. Such belittlement is the method of extreme philosophers and Sufis among esotericists and heretics who abolish prophetic laws and claim obligations lapse.
He then says:
“Someone may perform many deeds: prayer, fasting, Hajj, umrah, charity and expenditure; lead mosque prayers; deliver Friday, festival, rain and eclipse sermons; lead people; constantly answer religious questions; run a website giving rulings, teaching and spreading good. What are all these? Only means, acts. But we come to the heart: had a Companion done all this, he would have reached the highest rank of truthfulness, because they acted with presence of heart.”
I say: calling these acts of worship and devotion means is mistaken. They fulfil the Lawgiver’s purpose when performed with two conditions:
First, sincerity and intention.
Second, conformity to the Sunnah.
The shaykh’s subsequent discussion of deeds being invalidated and good deeds lost through ostentation, seeking reputation, reminding others of favours, causing harm or violating prohibitions concerns additional, intervening causes, not those righteous acts themselves. People are never entirely free of negligence, shortcomings and heedlessness.
Worship and righteous deeds performed sincerely, intentionally, seeking reward and with presence of heart certainly strengthen faith greatly and protect against sin or help abandon it: “Establish prayer. Prayer restrains indecency and wrongdoing, and the remembrance of God is greater. God knows what you do” (29:45). This effect follows correcting intention and action. Once these conditions are fulfilled, nothing further is required of the servant. They may nonetheless observe worship’s good effects and preserve both worship and its effects in heart, soul, speech and conduct through alertness, mindfulness, continued obedience and seeking more of it. People still remain subject to heedlessness, shortcomings and Satan’s whisperings and enticement towards acts distancing them from obedience.
He then says:
“I remind myself and you: do not become occupied with good-deed counts. We prayed today, praise be to God; we went, the shaykh offered good supplications and we prayed long. What is all this? Means. Have we arrived or not? We must ask ourselves: have we arrived? Are our hearts reformed? Whoever benefited from the imam’s supplication and night prayer is the one who, immediately on leaving the mosque, resolves to repent, abandon a sin, reduce permissible indulgences, increase obedience and pursue God’s pleasure.”
I say: worship and obedience producing repentance and an improved relationship with God is religiously desired and understandable in reality. Scholars say good deeds draw further good deeds and sins further sins. Increasing worship increases goodness and closeness to God. But complete repentance need not occur immediately upon leaving the mosque. People are weak: someone may be religious and righteous, their worship valid, yet weak before a particular sin. It is unsound to tie all their worship and deeds to the heart in a way that accuses it of lacking soundness. A Muslim combines good and bad, obedience and disobedience.
The clearest example is al-Bukhari’s well-known narration from Umar ibn al-Khattab: in the Prophet’s time a man named Abd Allah, nicknamed Himar, used to make the Messenger laugh. The Prophet had him flogged for drinking. One day he was brought and flogged again. Someone said: “God, curse him! How often he is brought!” The Prophet said: “Do not curse him. By God, I know that he loves God and His Messenger.”
The aim is to teach and direct people to perform the outward and inward deeds and words God obliges, explaining that these are intended by God and are the purpose of obligation. We must not open the door to obsessive doubt and anxiety by demanding further emotional and psychological matters.
This modern style of exhortation resembles some early Sufis’ discussions of intrusive thoughts and passing mental impressions. The early scholars rejected these to close paths leading people away from true devotion and opening doors to evil.
Ibn Muflih writes in al-Adab al-Shar‘iyyah, 1/531–532:
“Al-Marwazi said: Abu Abd Allah was asked about people discussing obsessive doubts and passing thoughts. He forbade sitting with them and told the questioner to beware. I heard him say: ‘The Armenians brought me a book mentioning obsessive doubts, passing thoughts and other things.’ I asked what he told them. He said: ‘All this is objectionable.’ Elsewhere he told al-Marwadhi: ‘Adhere to knowledge; adhere to jurisprudence.’
“Ishaq ibn Ibrahim said: I heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal ask: ‘Who discussed passing thoughts? The Successors? Their successors?’
“Ahmad ibn al-Qasim said: I heard Abu Abd Allah questioned by a stranger from Syria. He said Ibn Abi al-Hawari and others there discussed ideas they had written in a book and reviewed together. Asked what these were, he said: ‘They say love for God is better than obedience, and the station of love is such-and-such a rank.’ Abu Abd Allah did not let him finish: ‘This is not scholars’ speech. Pay no attention to whoever says it.’ He condemned and disliked it.
“Abu Zur‘ah al-Razi was asked about al-Harith al-Muhasibi and his books. He told the questioner: ‘Beware these books. They are books of innovation and error. Adhere to transmitted reports; you will find what suffices.’ Told that these books contain lessons, he replied: ‘Whoever finds no lesson in God’s Book will find none in these books. Have you heard that Sufyan, Malik or al-Awza‘i composed such books on passing thoughts and obsessive doubts? How quick people are to innovations!’”
This suffices. Success comes from God. Praise belongs to Him, first and last, outwardly and inwardly. May God bless Muhammad, his family and Companions, and grant them abundant peace.