When Good Deeds Disappear | Hidden Treasures Episode 19 | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed

When Good Deeds Disappear

One day the Prophet ﷺ was sitting with the companions and he asked a very simple yet a profound question. He said to the companions:

Who is bankrupt? And who is the person that has nothing? They are what we would consider to be broke. And the sahaba — their sunnah and their practice was that when the Prophet ﷺ would ask them a question, they would normally respond by saying:

Allah and His Prophet know the best. Meaning, whatever you think, Ya Rasulullah, you tell us. However, in this situation, because the answer seems so clear that there's no need to say Allah and His Prophet know best — because a broke person or a bankrupt person is the one that has no money.

They have no money. That means they're bankrupt, they're muflis.

The True Bankrupt Person

The Prophet ﷺ responded to this by saying: No, no — the bankrupt person is essentially the one who shows up on the Day of Judgment assuming and presuming that they have a great pile of reward waiting for them, that will ease their entrance into Jannah, that will propel their presence in front of all of the other human beings and push them towards Jannah.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 45, Hadith 60 — Hadith 2581)

They have this deluded confidence about themselves. They're in this delusion — they think that they've made it. But they show up, and all of the good deeds that they thought were there are actually filled with sins. That container that was supposed to be filled with good deeds is actually filled with sins. So they say: What's all of this? Where's our Salat, where's our Zakat, where's our fasting, where's our charity, where's everything at? We know we did it.

We clocked in and we clocked out when we left work. We clocked in when we gave out charity, we clocked in when we were fasting — but where's the reward for it? And the response will be that you did clock in, but actually when you clocked in, you also were backbiting about people. You clocked in, but while you were clocked in, you were assuming that you were better than other people whilst doing so. You did clock in, but when you clocked in to work, at the same time, you were pushing people away from that space. So though you did everything, you get nothing from it. All the good that you did was transferred over to other people, and their sins now fill your basket.

Fasting Without Reward

This is what the Prophet ﷺ was saying when he said:

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Book 7, Hadith 1690; also reported in Musnad Ahmad)

There are many who fast in the month of Ramadan, but they gain nothing from it except for hunger. Meaning there's no reward for them. Why would there be no reward if I fast? It's because of what I add to my fast — whether it's backbiting, belittling people, looking down upon people, using my eyes incorrectly, my ears, my hands.

Fast is not taught to us so that we protect our mouth — it's taught to us so we protect our tongue. The mouth is essential, but the tongue is even more important. And there are many people who stand for tahajjud and qiyam al-layl and taraweeh, but they gain nothing from it except for exhaustion. No reward.

The Hidden Treasure: Remove, Don't Just Add

So the hidden treasure is not necessarily to add something — it's to make sure that these elements are removed from our life. Because growth is not only by adding; true growth is by removing. And that's why sawm is all about suppressing and removing. Part of that is to make sure that we don't dilute and contaminate the purity of our fast by the impurity of our actions.