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Issue About Intentions For Worship Acts In The Context Of Rayakari (showing Off)
Hello there!
My question is that assalaam u alaykum, i have to clear an understanding, with which I’m but clear since long time and get thoughts regarding it. As in the case of RiyaKari, we have heard that this is shirk as we hear it as a lesser shirk or hidden shirk, where we see that a person worships Allah, but not for the sake of Allah, to earn regards through Him by pleasing Him. But the man worships Allah for the sake of showing people and building an elevated image in mind of people regarding himself. So it’s shirk because he does worship Allah but not for Allah, for something else ( which the case of showing off and building image).
Then i also got to know that from a man of knowledge in YouTube named ‘Shaikh Assim Al Hakeem’ that it is also shirk if a person takes money or benefit from people for his own Namaz or worship. That is also shirk. And again to my mind it fits perfectly in the definition above that a person worships Allah (in form of namaz) not for the sake of Allah but to get money or a benefit from people.
But then later some questions arise in my mind that we hear Hadith like this,
Sunan Abi Dawud 495
Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-‘As:
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it (prayer) when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds (to sleep) separately.
https://sunnah.com/abudawud:495
We see that we are told to command and further punish them for not praying, so question comes in mind that wouldn’t punishing the child compel the child to pray but not for sake of Allah but because of fear of getting beaten. In other words, they pray namaz but not for Allah, but to save themselves from punishment from parents.
So can you explain how to reconcile between this apparent clash?
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15 Replies
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Issue About Intentions For Worship Acts In The Context Of Rayakari (showing Off)
updated 2 years ago
2 Members
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15
Replies
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To do an act of worship to be praised or gain something from others along with the intention of pleasing God is shirk, as you rightly wrote.
The Hadith you mentioned is not reliable. Mr Hassan Ilyas has analyzed it in one of his essays.
However, since children has not developed consciousness to understand religious concepts we teach them worship rituals to facilitate them to adopt these in their later life with consciousness. It is not practical to let the children grow without training them in cultural rituals and norms in a void.
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@irfan76 sir there’s one more question in this theme that o wanted to ask,
there is a Hadith that is mentioned
Allah Almighty said: Verily, I have no need of any partners. Whoever performs a deed in which he associates another besides Me, I will abandon him and his partner.
Source: Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2985,
My question is that what is the explanation of this Hadith? Does it mean those people who do any act with intention of pleasing Allah and someone else for example, A person goes into gym with 2 intentions, one is to take care of the body that Allah has given him with intention of thanking Allah for his blessing so to please Allah and also because he wants to give company to his friend at the gym and so to please him as well. (note that both intentions are permissible when done separately, the only difference is that one act is done here with a part of both intentions)
Or
It means those who do Shirk, like in rayakari or like setting up partners with Allah in those acts which are done solely for Allah, which are acts of worship, like someone praying namaz, or fasting etc, those who do those for Allah and for someone or something else, like? They will have no share from Allah
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Edit: last paragraph -> those who do an act of worship of Allah to please Allah and also doing any that worship of Allah to please someone else or get a benefit from someone else for that worship. And that polluted worship would have no share from Allah, even though partial intention for pleasing Allah was there too.
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Casual acts of ours like wearing good cloth to please ourselves need not to be counted for reward from God. Example can be numerous.
If a religious teacher get paid for his services, gets reward from God too. This is not like getting advantage for a thing supposed to be done solely for Allah. He is paid for his time. This intention of his is not shirk as worldly advantage and pleasure of God in such cases are not rival to each other. Only that pleasure is a rival to that of God which is not desirable like pleasing someone to consider you pious for saying prayer.
Eventually it our conscience which decides in such matters.
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@irfan76 yes sir, so it comes i guess to the same point as i mentioned that combining 2 intentions in a an act is not what was said in the Hadith. For example that example of gym or for example trip to Makkah for Hajj and for visiting a friend to make him happy so one act of making a trip is done with 2 parts of intentions, 1 part of intention is to please Allah with intention of Hajj, and this part is like a worship to Allah, hence worthy of reward. And the other part of intention is to make a friend happy by reaching his place and meeting him, which is a normal thing, so here it’s a Mubah thing and not shirk. However it would have been shirk if he would try to make his friend happy through that part of intention which was of worship, like if he decides to do that part of worship for pleasing his friend (or like doing Hajj which is Allah’s worship for his friends pleasure), then it would be pollution and hence shirk. Right sir?
I’m sorry sir if you feel bothered, if you do not clearly understand what i said above, do let me know and inshallah I’ll explain it again
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And this situations rewards from Allah would be lesser to that person, who makes a trip to Makkah solely for Hajj
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Yes, you are right here, as per my understanding. It is again our conscience that tells us whether a part or a mix of our intentions is bad or not. For example, if a boy says a prayer to make his father happy with the intention to please God, is not bad. Because the two intentions are not rival to each other. In the time of the Prophet Ubi bin kaab, was once leading the prayer and the prophet came and join him as a Muqtadi. the Prophet praised Ubi for his recitation. Ubi said, if I knew you were behind me, I would have recited the Quran in a more beautiful way.
Purity in intention is judged by conscience.
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@irfan76 sir just to clear myself, by the example i wanted to give above, the part of intention that i mentioned for pleasing friend was to meet him to please him, but not like pleasing him to please Allah. It was just to please that friend. And still there nothing wrong in it, right sir? I just want felt a doubt maybe you misunderstood that example of pleasing friend for indirectly pleasing Allah etc. Still it would be all good, right sir?
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If you don’t find wrong in it, it is not wrong.
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@Irfan76 sir i wanted to ask that, i have heard that praying earlier when the time starts can be pleasing to Allah, and hence a worship. So sometimes if someone prays earlier for Allah’s pleasure then it would be counted as another act of worship on top of worship of praying namaz as well. But if someone prays namaz for Allah only, but prays it early (doing the act of praying early), not because to please Allah but to save himself some time to do another activity, so it is all good right? I mean he won’t be getting reward for praying earlier because the he did not do the act of praying earlier as an ibadah by pleasing Allah, but he did this act because he wanted to save time for doing some other worldly activity later etc. But he wouldn’t be doing any shirk right sir?
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Keep in view the principle. We should do the worship and all acts of good to thier best best form. This is called Ihsaan and the doer Mohsin, the plural is Mohsineen. The best form is of course more pleasing to God. Sawab is not mathematics. It is the reslutl of pleasure of God. How good an act has been performed is what a man’s conscience can decide.
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@Irfan76 yes sir i understand, but i just wanted to ask that when someone prays for Allah, but the timing he chooses for prayer (praying earlier) is not to fulfill any command or nafl activity, but it is to save up some time to do other activities, so it wouldn’t come under the heading of doing worship for something else like RiyaKari? And it wouldn’t be Shirk? Right sir?
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Yes it is not shirk or riyakari. It involves none against God.
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@Irfan76 and sir i wanted to clear one scenario in my head. That someone prays a Namaz totally for Allah, the objective of praying namaz is only to please Allah, but the place for namaz he chooses is to please someone (for example a friend says that if you pray asr then pray at my house etc) so the choice of location for performing prayer was to please him. So there’s nothing wrong in it, right sir? Because no act of ibadah is done to please any other. The choice of place of namaz through which the friend is pleased, is not done as a worship. (The selection of place is not done as a worship, hence if someone is pleased with it, it would be alright) right sir?
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Yes. In such cases, the best judge is your conscience.
For example, if I show my saying of prayer to my kids so that they may become Namazi too, it is a showoff, still, it is not bad, so it is not Riyakari.
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