Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Quality of deeds is more important than Quantity

(Sheikh Salman al-Oadah)

The phrase used in the Qur'an is not “most in deeds” but “best in deeds".

Quran 67:2 "He it is who created death and life so He may try you as to which of you is best in deeds."

Notice that in the verse, Allah does not speak about the quantity of deeds, but their quality.

"Best of deeds” means: To make them sincere and correct, because a sincere but incorrect deed will not be accepted, just as a correct but insincere deed will not be accepted. A deed will never be acceptable unless it is both sincere and correct.
[Fadl b. Iyâd, Refer to Ibn Taymiyah, al-`Ubûdiyyah]

In other words, for a deed to earn reward from Allah, it must fulfill the following necessary conditions:

A. Purity of intention, i.e., it is done only to earn Allah's pleasure and not to attain people's praises.

B. It should be correct and in agreement with the Sunnah and the Islamic Law.

The reward of any deed rests on these two foundations. The more sincere an act is and the more rigorously it adheres to the Sunnah and Islamic Law, the more reward is attained by the doer of the deed.

No comments:

Post a Comment