Purity of Intention

Opening — Khutbah al-Hajah

إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلَّهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا، مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلَا مُضِلَّ لَهُ، وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَا هَادِيَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ

أَمَّا بَعْدُ، فَإِنَّ أَصْدَقَ الْحَدِيثِ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ وَأَحْسَنَ الْهَدْيِ هَدْيُ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَشَرَّ الْأُمُورِ مُحْدَثَاتُهَا، وَكُلَّ مُحْدَثَةٍ بِدْعَةٌ، وَكُلَّ بِدْعَةٍ ضَلَالَةٌ، وَكُلَّ ضَلَالَةٍ فِي النَّارِ

Brothers and sisters in Islam, today our khutbah is about ikhlas, or purity of intention. And one of the main purposes also of this topic is to dispel some common misconceptions concerning ikhlas.

Defining Ikhlas

The definition of ikhlas: خَلَصَ — ya'ni tanqiyat ash-shay' wa tahdhibuh — something is pure and purified.

And that's why Surat al-Ikhlas is not talking about sincerity. We always translate ikhlas in English as sincerity, but that's not a very accurate definition. Ikhlas is actually purity of intention. Surat al-Ikhlas does not talk about sincerity, but it's called Surat al-Ikhlas because it is purely speaking about Allah and nothing else. And that's why it's called Surat al-Ikhlas.

أَخْلَصَهُ in the language — ya'ni naja wa salim — to be saved and secure and protected, or unharmed. So that means your good deed was safe and protected from having riyaa, where you're showing off, doing it for someone else, or doing it for other than Allah. And so your good deed in that sense was done purely for the sake of Allah.

Allah says in the Quran:

And they were commanded to worship Allah, keeping their religion pure — or purely for Him.

Ikhlas is the difference between two people praying right next to each other, doing the exact same movements, while one Allah will accept from him and the other perhaps not accepted, or not as much.

In Surat an-Nisa, Allah says:

Allah mentions: whoever does — and this applies to any good deed — and it's done seeking the pleasure of Allah, meaning you're only purely doing it seeking the pleasure of Allah:

فَسَوْفَ نُؤْتِيهِ أَجْرًا عَظِيمًا — He will get an immense reward with Allah.

For that reason the great scholar Abdullah ibn Mubarak, rahimahullah, he used to say:

Perhaps you might do a small deed but it will be magnified due to the intention. And perhaps you do a huge, great deed — great effort — but it will become smaller due to the niyyah.

So no doubt then it is one of the conditions of a good deed being accepted by Allah.

The Danger of Riyaa — Showing Off

In the hadith qudsi, Allah says:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 42, Hadith 7114)

Meaning: I am in the least need of partners. Whoever does any deed and joins someone else in that deed with Me, then I will leave him to his shirk. So Allah will direct all that action to the other thing that you were doing it along with Allah. And that's what Allah says in the Quran, describing the deeds of certain people on the Day of Judgment:

Allah talks about these people and their deeds on the Day of Judgment and He will make them like scattered dust — they have no value. And it could be that one of the reasons is that their deeds were not purely for His sake.

The Story of the Man Who Prayed for Forty Years

One of the true stories that indicates the importance of making sure our actions are purely for the sake of Allah is a story of a man from the early Muslims who used to pray in the front row in the masjid for 40 years — 4-0. For 40 years, he's always in the front line in the masjid. And he says then one day, after praying consistently in the front row for 40 years, he came late. He was in the second, third, or some other row.

He says, while he was in the salah, he kept thinking: Today people will see that I'm not in the front row. Today people will see me in the third row. While he was thinking that, he says, he realized that for 40 years he was praying in the front row — not for the sake of Allah — but to show off to people. Because if he was doing it purely for the sake of Allah, then his thoughts and his concern would be: Today Allah will see that I'm not in the first row. Today Allah will look in the first row and not find me. Today Allah sees me in the third row.

But this is how it can creep in. This is how riyaa, or showing off, can creep into the act of worship so much that it can be undetectable for so long. This man — it took him this incident to realize that he wasn't doing it purely for the sake of Allah.

Seeking Refuge from Hidden Shirk

And that's why the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam used to say this very beautiful du'a — he used to seek refuge with Allah:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 19606; graded sahih by al-Albani)

He's saying: Oh Allah, I seek your protection — I seek refuge with You — that I commit this shirk. And showing off is a minor, or hidden, shirk — that is how the scholars classify it. Because shirk is when you direct an act of worship to other than Allah, or to someone else alongside Allah. And if I'm praying to show off to people, then is that prayer purely for Allah, or is part of it for the people as well?

So he used to say: I seek refuge with You that I commit shirk while I'm aware, and I seek Your forgiveness for that which I'm not aware. Because it could reach the point where you're not even aware that you're not doing this purely for the sake of Allah.

The Power of Ikhlas

And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, showing the power of ikhlas, said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3590; graded hasan by al-Tirmidhi)

There is not a servant who says لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ with purity of intention except that the doors and gates of the heavens will be opened until it goes all the way up to the Throne of Allah — on the condition that he stays away from the kabair, the things that have a promised punishment in this world or the next.

Yahya ibn Abi Kathir, rahimahullah, used to say:

Learn niyyah — meaning learn having purity of intention, learn to purify your intention — because it can go further and reach higher than just the action alone.

We also see in the Quran that ikhlas is one of the things that prevents being misguided by Shaytan. Iblis, when he vowed and promised to misguide the majority of Allah's creation:

I will misguide all of them — but then he mentioned the exception: Except Your servants amongst them who have pure intention — meaning they worship and they do actions purely for Your sake.

Signs of Pure Intention

The scholars mentioned some of the signs of having pure intentions.

1. Consistency in Public and Private

One of them is that your work and actions are the same whether you're in public or in private. Someone who is amongst righteous men — and because they lower their gaze, he shows them that he lowered his gaze — but when he's alone, he looks freely. Or someone when he's with people will pray Isha, but when he's alone he will sleep without praying Isha. These are just examples of how actions change in public and in private.

But it's important also to mention some balance. The reality is — and the scholars mentioned — that realistically, people's behavior will always be better in public than in private. So a lot of times people find that their behavior changes when they're alone and they immediately accuse themselves of hypocrisy and so on, opening an avenue for the Shaytan. So that's a given — but the disparity should not be huge. It shouldn't be where you leave off actions altogether.

2. Indifference to Praise or Blame

The other sign is that your work and actions are the same whether you are praised or you are not praised. If Allah is pleased with your actions and pleased with you, then it shouldn't matter who is displeased.

A man said to another: "I'm going to condemn you in such a way that I will go with you to your grave. I'm going to speak badly about you and it will spread and stick — even when you go to your grave, it'll go with you. That will remain your reputation." But the man had purity of intention and didn't care about what others thought, as long as he was doing what pleases Allah. So he told him: "It will enter with you in your grave — not me." Meaning, you're condemning me, saying bad things about me — that is a sin that you committed and it will go with you. It'll go with you to your grave. It's not going to go with me.

And another example: Umar, radiyallahu anhu, wrote to Abu Musa, radiyallahu anhu:

Whoever's intention is pure, Allah will protect him and suffice him from what is between him and between people. Whether they praise you or condemn you, it is the same.

Two Points of Balance

Number one: The scholars say it is also important to care for your reputation. It's not that the believing man or woman says, "As long as Allah knows the truth, I don't care what people think." Someone who is accused of smoking or consuming alcohol says, "Allah knows that I don't consume, so I don't care what people think." But the scholars say you should care about your reputation. And that's why — if you have an excuse to break your fast — the scholars recommend you still don't drink publicly, so that people don't think negatively of you. One might say, "Allah knows I have an excuse, who cares what people think." But you're supposed to care about your reputation.

And that is one of the lessons from the incident of the ifk — the incident of Aisha, radiyallahu anha. She knew she was innocent. And some people were convinced otherwise. But she never admitted to something she didn't do. And the scholars say one of the lessons from her story is: you never admit to something you didn't do. You care about your reputation. It's not just, "I only care what Allah thinks and I can destroy my reputation in front of people." That's the first point of balance.

Number two: There is nothing wrong with being happy after completing a good deed. Many people, if they do a good deed — especially a good deed at the end of a long day of some good, some charity work — they come home feeling happy. And then some start to question themselves: Am I really doing this for the sake of Allah? And that is just another avenue for the Shaytan.

And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, in one hadith, describes the believer in a very beautiful way. Instead of saying "the believer," he said: whoever's good deed pleases him and his bad deed displeases him — that is the definition of a believer. And it is natural that if you woke up, prayed some qiyam, prayed Fajr, made adhkar, recited some Quran — you feel good about these deeds and you feel good about that morning. There is no hypocrisy here and there is no lack of sincerity or purity of intention.

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ الْعَظِيمَ لِي وَلَكُمْ مِنْ جَمِيعِ الذُّنُوبِ، فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ — فَيَا فَوْزَ الْمُسْتَغْفِرِينَ. Ask Allah for His forgiveness. Indeed, those who ask for His forgiveness shall prosper.

Second Khutbah — Is Ikhlas Attainable?

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ، وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى رَسُولِهِ الْأَمِينِ، وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ. أَمَّا بَعْدُ.

The other misconception we would like to dispel concerning purity of intention and purifying your intention is that sometimes you'll find some du'at and some speakers present ikhlas as the most difficult thing in Islam. And we have statements from the righteous who lived before us indicating that they found ikhlas to be the most difficult thing in the religion.

A famous statement from Sufyan al-Thawri, rahimahullah: he said that he found the hardest thing in Islam to be ikhlas — meaning to have pure intention. That's the hardest thing in Islam, harder than anything else.

And then there is another statement that is popular but will realistically cause difficulty and confusion for people. That statement says: Whoever sees ikhlas in his ikhlas, then his ikhlas is in need of ikhlas. Meaning, whoever sees that his intention was pure, then he needs to purify his intention further. This puts you in a vicious cycle that has no end. So is it something attainable or not?

This is a point of debate among scholars and students of knowledge. Some of them present it like it's something impossible to attain; others present it like it's something attainable. And the truth is, Allah never asks His servants for anything that is unattainable. Anything that is impossible — you will never find Islam asking you to do it.

So they argue that it is not that difficult. It is not that difficult. Even though you have to be in the process of constantly renewing — especially people who are in the limelight, or people who have become popular for something. Speakers, khutaba' — they have to work extra hard perhaps in purifying their intention. Someone who has become popular for an act of worship. Someone who is popular for always being in the masjid — he might have to, every time he leaves the masjid, make sure he's doing it for the sake of Allah and not to be seen by people. Someone who is popular for giving in charity — he has to make sure that he always purifies his intention.

How to Attain Ikhlas — Practical Steps

But it is attainable through the following very simple, logical steps.

Number one: You can always renew and refresh your intention. So if someone is doing an act of good and then something creeps into their heart — or people see them and they become pleased because of that — they stop themselves at that point and renew their intention that they are only doing this for the sake of Allah. They can do this at the beginning and they can even do this in the middle of an act of worship — they stop and simply renew and refresh their intention.

Number two: They can refresh their intention again and again. They do that, and then an hour later something else happens and they find themselves doing it to show off. Then they renew their intention again and again.

And the scholars also mentioned that you do not leave a good deed because of being unable to purify your intention. If you do that, then the Shaytan has tricked you as well. You do your best to renew your intention and you don't stop doing good deeds — not because of anyone, and not because of uncertainty about your intention.

Closing Du'a

With that, we ask Allah to make us of those who recognize the truth as clear truth and follow the best of it. And to make us of those who recognize falsehood as clear falsehood and abstain from it.

We ask Allah to grant ease and victory to Islam and to the Muslims. We ask Allah to remove this illness from our countries, our cities, and from around the world.

وَصَلِّ اللَّهُمَّ وَبَارِكْ عَلَى مَبْعُوثِ رَحْمَةٍ لِلْعَالَمِينَ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ. وَقُومُوا إِلَى صَلَاتِكُمْ وَرَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ.