The First Wisdom

A sign that one is relying on ones deeds is the decrease in hope

when one makes a mistake
By Al-Almah Al-Shahd:

Muammad Sad Raman Al-B ()

Translated by Mahdi Lock1

Is relying on ones deeds praiseworthy in the Revealed Law or blameworthy?

Ibn A Illh says to us: When it comes to Allah being pleased with you and the
reward He has promised you, beware of relying on the deeds that you have done and
have been granted tawfq2 to do, such as prayer, fasting, charity and various other
righteous acts. Rather, rely therein on Allahs kindness, favour and generosity.

Is there any proof for this? Yes, and it is the adth of the Messenger of Allah, may
Allah bless him and grant him peace, which has been related by Al-Bukhr and
others: {Not a single one of you will be entered into Paradise by his deeds.} They
said, Not even you, O Messenger of Allah? He said, {Not even me, unless Allah
covers me with His mercy.}

Therefore, deeds are not the price for entering Paradise. As that is the case, what is
thus sought when one is granted the tawfq to carry out acts of obedience is to desire
Allahs pleasure and reward, hoping for His favour, pardon and generosity, and not
to desire some sort of payment for the deed that one was granted tawfq to do.

And here he says: One of the clearest proofs that you are relying on your deeds and
not on Allahs favour is that your hope in the Exalteds pardon decreases when you
make mistakes, i.e. when you become entangled in acts of disobedience and sin.

What this means is that while you were hoping for Allahs generosity and
magnanimity you were actually relying therein on your deeds, and thus whenever
your good deeds were few and your sins were many, hope disappeared. This is the
standard that shows that in your hope you are relying on your deeds and not on
Allahs favour and generosity, Glorified and Exalted is He. In brief, this is the
meaning of this wisdom of Ibn A Illh, may Allah have mercy on him.

1
(tn): Translated from Al-ikam Al-Aiyyah li Ibn A Illh Al-Iskandar: Shar wa Tall (Damascus:
Dr Al-Fikr, 2009), v.1, p.21-39
2
(tn): i.e. the success to do something, or enabling success

1
Furthermore, this wisdom has an important dimension in creed, an important
dimension in the Sunnah, in the speech of our master, the Messenger of Allah, may
Allah bless him and grant him peace, and after that it has a dimension in nurturing
good character, and if Allah so wills we shall expound each one.

***

Let us thus understand that the wisdoms of Ibn A Illh fall into three categories:

The first category revolves around the axis of tawd.3

The second category revolves around the axis of character.4

The third category is connected to behaviour5 and purifying the self6 from filth.

Let us being by expounding the theological dimension and analysing it in the first
wisdom:

The author of Jawharat Al-Tawd7 says:

If He rewards us, that is solely out of His favour

And if He punishes us, that is solely out of His justice

This is the doctrine that should be dyed within every Muslim, and this is the way that
was followed by the righteous, first three generations,8 may Allah be pleased with all
of them.

Someone might say at this point, Rather, the outward purport is that the reward
that we deserve is solely on account of the righteous actions that we have done.

However, if we contemplate the relationship between the slave and his Lord and
examine it closely, we realise that the matter is not like that.

3
(tn): i.e. the belief that Allah is the only deity that exists and thus the only deity worthy of worship
4
(tn): Ar. akhlq
5
(tn): Ar. sulk
6
(tn): Ar. nafs
7
(tn): i.e. Imam Al-Laqn, who is Imam Ibrhm ibn Ibrhm Burhn Al-Dn (d.1041 AH), an
Egyptian Mlik scholar from the village of Laqnah. He was a scholar of fiqh, ul al-fiqh, adth and
theology, the text Jawharat Al-Tawd being his magnum opus in the latter field.
8
(tn): Ar. Al-Salaf Al-li, based on the adth in Al-Bukhr and Muslim: {The best of my
community (khayr ummat) is my generation, then those who follow them, then those who follow
them.}There is also the wording: {The best of people (khayr al-ns) is my generation} Another
wording in Muslim is: {The best generation (khayr al-qurn) is my generation} These generations
are the Companions (al-abah), the Followers (al-Tbin) and the Followers of the Followers (Atba
or Tbi al-Tbin).

2
What is the meaning of your statement: Allah will only reward me because of my
deedsHe will only enter me into Paradise because of my deeds.? What these words
mean is that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has set a price for Paradise, and it is not
represented in dirhams or monetary liquidity but rather in acts of worship and
obedience and avoiding that which is unlawful. Therefore, if you carry out acts of
obedience and refrain from forbidden matters then you have paid the price, and
thereupon you have become deserving of the merchandise that you have purchased!
When you say, I am only rewarded because of the deeds I have done, then this is
what your words mean, but is the matter really like that? In other words, when you
carry out the commands that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has demanded of you, do
you become deserving of Paradise and the owner of it by the sweat of your brow, in
the same way that someone would become deserving of some donums of land by
paying the set price to the owner who put it up for sale? If you contemplate you will
see that the matter is very different. If I were to pay the price for this garden in
money, just as the seller has requested, I would thus become the owner of that
garden, without him showing me any act of kindness, in a legally required,
mechanical fashion. I would then have the right to say to him, Get off my land. Ive
paid the full price for it.

This is how the relationship between one slave and another is. As for when Allah,
Glorified and Exalted, commands you to the acts of obedience that He has enjoined
upon you and forbids you from the unlawful matters that He has warned you about,
and Allah gives you the tawfq to carry out these obligations and avoid that which is
unlawful, the matter is completely different. Who gave you the ability to perform
that prayer? Who gave you the ability to do that fast? Who opened your heart to
faith? Was it not Allah, Mighty and Majestic? Allah spoke the truth when He said,
{They make it a favour to you that they have become Muslims. Say: Dont think that
your Islam is a favour to me. Rather, Allah has favoured you by guiding you to faith.}
[Al-ujurt 49:17]

Therefore, there is a massive difference between the two illustrations. Who has made
you love faith and hate disbelief, iniquity and disobedience? Who? It is Allah,
Glorified and Exalted. Who has opened your heart and given you the ability to come
to one of Allahs houses and attend the congregational prayer, and then sit and
listen to that which will bring you closer to Allah, Glorified and Exalted? Who? It is
Allah, Glorified and Exalted. Therefore, what is it that makes you imagine that
obedience is the price you pay from your own property in exchange for taking
possession of Allah the Exalteds Paradise, making an analogy of the one who pays
instalments from his own free wealth in order to take possession of a garden, an
analogy despite the massive difference.

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Therefore, it is not permissible for you to imagine that you deserve (contemplate the
exact expression that I am using: it is not permissible for you to imagine that you
deserve) Allah the Exalteds Paradise and His reward because you have carried out
what He demanded, because you have done what He obligated, and avoided that
which He declared unlawful. It is not permissible for you to believe this, and if you
were to believe it, it would be one of the most dangerous kinds of idolatry.9

This is because such a creedal doctrine would mean that you believe that your prayer
is performed with an intrinsic ability 10 from you and that you carry it out as a favour
for Allah, that your obedience that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has commanded you
to is carried out with movement from your own essential being, and your essential
being is your intrinsic property, and your ability is your intrinsic property, and thus
you are the owner of your actions and you are the one who creates and brings your
abilities into existence, and the Originator11 has no connection to it whatsoever.
Therefore, according to your imagination, its as if you are presenting your acts of
obedience to Him on a plate and saying, Heres what You commanded and Ive
carried it out just as You wanted, with my own intrinsic power and ability, so give me
the Paradise that you promised me.

And this is how the process becomes one of buying and sellingIve given you the
value and therefore I have the right to demand the price back from you! Is this
logical between a slave and his Lord? Where are you in relation to the reality of your
slavehood to Allah? Where are you in relation to the sanctified words that the
Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would teach to his
Companions, {There is no power or strength except with Allah}? Where are you in
relation to the certitude of faith that there is no doubt that Allah, Glorified and
Exalted, is the Creator of the slaves actions?12 Who is that creates our, i.e. we the
slaves, actions? I dont think it will take us long to expound the truth, which is the
creed of the righteous, first three generations, and they are Muslim Orthodoxy, 13 as
represented by the Ashars and the Mturds. 14 Therefore, when I praise Allah,
Glorified and Exalted, with my tongue, I should thank Allah for moving my tongue
with this praise. If I get up in the middle of the night to pray, I should praise Allah
for granting me the tawfq to stand before him. Were it not for His love for me, were
it not for His concern for me, were it not for His kindness towards me, I would have
been immersed in my sleep, and yet He honoured me by having me stand before
Him like this. One time, I told you the story of a young girl who was working as a

9
(tn): Ar. al-shirk
10
(tn): Ar. qudrah dhtiyyah
11
(tn): Ar. Al-Bri
12
(tn): Please see Al-fft 37:96
13
(tn): Ar. ahl al-sunnah wa al-jamah
14
(tn): and the anbals

4
servant for a family, and one night the man of the house woke up in the middle of
the night and saw the girl praying in a corner of the house, and while she was
prostrating he heard her say, O Allah, I ask You by Your love for me to make me
happythat you protect me and honour me and the rest of her supplication. The
man of the house saw her words as significant, so he waited for her to finish her
prayer and then he proceeded to ask her, What is this pampering before Allah? You
said, O Allah, I ask You by Your love for me to make me happy and to honour me
and to She replied, My master, were it not for His love for me, He wouldnt have
awoken me at this hour. Were it not for His love for me, He wouldnt have made me
stand before Him, were it not for His love for me, He wouldnt have made me have
this intimate conversation with Him.

Take notice, dear brothers: this is the tawd that should be dyed in every single one
of us. How can you favour Allah with your prayer when He is the one who gave you
the tawfq to do it?!

This is the principle that the author of Jawharat Al-Tawd and all other scholars of
theology mean when they say:

If He rewards us, that is solely out of His favour

And if He punishes us, that is solely out of His justice

At this point, some of us might be thinking: If that is the case, then what is the
meaning of Allahs statement, Mighty and Majestic: {Enter Paradise with that which
you used to do.} [Al-Nal 16:32], and Allah has repeated these words many times in
his pre-eternal elucidation? I will give you the answer and it will increase you in love
for Allah and it will increase you in being immersed in the feelings of slavehood to
Him:

Indeed these words are established by one party, and it is Allah, Mighty and
Majestic, and not two contracting partiesAllah gives you the tawfq to do deeds and
He inspires you to do the right thing. You knock on his door in fervent supplication,
saying, O Allah, there is no power or strength except with You. My forelock is in
Your hands and You do what You want with it. Take it to the path of felicity and
straightforwardness. Then Allah answers your supplication, opens your heart to
goodness, gives you the tawfq to do righteous deeds and then He says to you on the
Day of Resurrection: {Enter Paradise with that which you used to do.} [Al-Nal
16:32] Are these words from Him, Mighty and Majestic, i.e. the implementation of
the consensual contract between you and Him, the same as a contract between a
seller and a buyer?

5
No, and we seek refuge in Allah. Indeed He, Mighty and Majestic, when He made
your deeds a cause for entering Paradise He only did so out of His favour and
beneficence.

If you refuse to imagine that the issue between Allah and His slaves is anything but
an exchange of one right for another, and you bring those claims with you on the
Day of Resurrection, saying to Allah, I deserve Paradise and to reside therein
eternally because of the required deeds that I have done, and Allah, Mighty and
Majestic based on this claim of yours decides to take you to account in a precise
manner, there will be no right left from what you were claiming and it will all vanish
under the might of your slavehood to Allah and your need of His help and tawfq.

Perhaps the closest example of what Im saying would be how a father acts with his
son when he wants to encourage him to be generous and do good deeds. He would
say to his son, If you give that poor person some money Ill give you a present. The
father then slips some money into the childs pocket and the son responds to his
fathers requests because he hopes for the present he promised him. Thus, he gives
the poor person the money that his father slipped into his pocket and his father
rejoices at it, and to show how pleased he is with this act of generosity he describes
his son by saying, You have done a sublime humanitarian deed, and there is no
doubt that you deserve an immense reward for it.

It is clear that this is a clever means of nurturing, which the father is using with his
son. There is no doubt that the son will understand this later, that the money in his
pocket was his fathers money, and that the present that he received in the name of
recompense and reward for his good deed was actually a show of love towards him
out of a desire to motivate him to do more beautiful, humanitarian deeds. Thus,
Allahs statement, Mighty and Majestic: {Enter Paradise with that which you used to
do.} [Al-Nal 16:32] is nothing but of this nature.

It has been mentioned in more than one report that one of the slaves of Allah the
Exalted will say on the Day of Resurrection: O Lord, take me to account with Your
justice and with what I deserve, for indeed I lived my entire life in the world without
spending a single day in Your disobedience. Then Allah will remind him of the
blessing of his two seeing eyes, which Allah had granted him. Have you shown
thanks for these eyes? Allahs favour towards him 15 will be placed on one side of the
scale and all his acts of obedience and worship will be placed on the other, and the
side with the divine favour will outweigh the side with the acts of obedience and
worship that Allah had given him the ability to do.

15
(tn): i.e. the blessing of seeing eyes

6
If you considered Allahs blessings which you have at your disposal in the life of this
world you would see that just a single moment in which you enjoy these blessings is
greater than all the acts of obedience you have ever doneyou are Allahs slave,
Glorified and Exalted is He. With His power you obey Him, with His mercy you
move towards Him, and because of His mercy towards you, you draw nearer to Him.
Indeed I say what my father, may Allah the Exalted have mercy on him, used to say
in one of his supplications: O Lord, indeed I thank You but You are the one who
has inspired me to thank You, so my gratitude requires that I thank you for giving
me the tawfq for this gratitude, and then the matter continues indefinitely. You are
the Creator of everything and You are Kind to me in all states.

Therefore, Allah the Exalteds statement: {Enter Paradise with that which you used
to do.} [Al-Nal 16:32] is established by one party. As for us, we should know that we
are entering Paradise solely out of His favour, Mighty and Majestic. You carry out
what He has made you legally responsible for with the feelings of the right that is
due from you, such that when you do what Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has
commanded and carry it out in the desired fashion, you should know that you are
striving towards Allahs generosity, Mighty and Majestic is He, without you deserving
anything. You should only be aspiring for His mercy and His pardon. One of the
righteous saw a man from amongst the godly [?] in his sleep after his death and he
said to him and he knew he had died - : What has Allah done with you? He
replied me, He stood me before Him and said, What have you come to Me with? I
replied, O Lord, I am a slave, and a slave doesnt own anything that he can bring to
his master. I have come desiring Your pardon and hoping for your generosity.

Have you looked at the logic of slavehood? This is how we will come before Allah,
Mighty and Majestic, tomorrow, and whoever doesnt realise this today shall realise it
tomorrow.

This is what has been affirmed by the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and
grant him peace, in the adth that has been related by Al-Bukhr from the adth
of Ab Hurayra, as well as from the adth of Lady isha and the adth of Ab
Sad Al-Khudr, that the Messenger of Allah said, {Not a single one of you will be
entered into Paradise by his deeds.} They said, Not even you, O Messenger of
Allah? He said, {Not even me, unless Allah covers me with His mercy.} Here we
should notice the precision of the Messenger of Allahs speech in expressing the
meaning that we have been explaining and clarifying, for he, may Allah bless him
and grant him peace, did not say, None of you will enter Paradise with his deeds. If
he had said so then his speech would have contradicted the Qurn, which affirms
that Allah enters His righteous slaves in Paradise with their deeds, and an example is
in His statement, Mighty and Majestic: {Enter Paradise with that which you used to
do.} [Al-Nal 16:32] Rather, he said, {Not a single one of you will be entered into

7
Paradise by his deeds.} In other words, your reliance on your deeds independent of
Allahs pardon and clemency, His tolerance and generosity, will dash your hopes and
none of your dreams will be realised. This is because Allah is the one who made your
trifling deeds a path to His forgiveness and His Paradise. The particle b16 in the
Exalteds statement: {with that which you used to do} has been attached to deeds,
but the reality is that Allahs mercy, Allahs generosity, and the vastness of Allahs
pardon; you dont deserve it, O slave, whoever you are and whatever your affair and
station may be.

Look at the example of one of us who gives money to a poor person and
contemplate how divine mercy and sublime forgiveness is manifested in the b,
which is inserted to indicate causation on behalf of ones deeds, even though it is
known that wealth is Allahs wealth, and it has no true owner apart from Him. Has
He not said: {And give from Allahs wealth which He has given to you}? [Al-Nr
24:33]? Then He addresses us by saying, {Who will lend Allah a good loan, which He
will then multiply for him several times over?} [Al-Baqarah 2:245] He gives you from
His wealth and then you presume that you are the actual owner of it. He places His
Exalted Essence in the place of a borrower, saying: Lend me something from this
wealth of yours and I promise that I will return it to you and it will be multiplied
many times over.

So do you believe that you are the true owner and that Allah is nothing but in need
of you and borrowing from you?! Is it possible to become so intoxicated by this
divine, generous, loving rhetoric such that you become distracted from reality and
believe that you are the owner and that Allah is the borrower, and then you claim
that you have the right to demand back what you lent to Allah in addition to the
benefits that youve mutually agreed on?

If you imagine this, and you forget that the b of causation is actually a
manifestation of divine kindness, then you are insane by every qualification.

Therefore, we have realised and tasted the meaning of the words of our master, the
Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: {Not a single one of
you will be entered into Paradise by his deeds} and the rest of the adth.

But let us ask: is there any contradiction between Allah promising you that you will
enter Paradise through His mercy and Him commanding you at the same time to
worship Him?

There is no contradiction, because worship is Allahs right over you due to the fact
that you are His slave, and Paradise is a favour and gift from Allah to you due to the

16
(tn): meaning with

8
fact that He is most merciful and forgiving towards you. He has already decreed that
the people closest to His mercy are those who do the most with regards to fulfilling
His rights, and He declared this when He said, {My mercy extends to all things, but
I will prescribe it for those who have taqw.17} [Al-Arf 7:156]

And let no one say, Why do I need Allahs mercy and pardon if I am a believer and I
have taqw? The answer is that neither faith nor taqw are a price for the gift that you
will receive. Rather, it is a consequential right of Allah over you. If you fulfil the right
that is on your neck then you dont deserve anything in return, and everything you
receive from Him is a favour, mercy and pardon.

Now, let us return to the words of Ibn A Illh and let us focus on a very
important point that he warns us about: A sign that one is relying on ones deeds is
the decrease in hope when one makes a mistake.

In other words, one of the most dangerous consequences of relying on your deeds
for Allahs reward is losing hope of His pardon when you become embroiled in
mistakes and sins, for between the two matters is an inextricable concomitance. The
only way for ones hope in Allahs mercy and pardon not to be diminished when one
falls short is not to depend on your deeds when tawfq is your ally. When you do that,
you will be striving for Allahs generosity and magnanimity in both states, to the
same extent that you will be fearful of His wrath and loathing.

Therefore, fear of Allahs wrath and punishment must be present with constant hope
in His mercy and favour, because man, whoever he may be, cannot detach himself
from falling short with regards to the rights of Lordship over him, in all states and
vicissitudes.

Thereupon, indeed the one who sees himself as suffering from weakness and falling
short [?] such that he cannot fulfil any of Allahs rights over him, two equal feelings
with tug at him in all situations: one of them is his feelings of hope in Allahs favour
and pardon and the second is his feelings of shame and fear of falling short with
regards to Allah, Mighty and Majestic. The first set of feelings will not become
ascendant and more intense when he sees himself having the tawfq to carry out acts
of obedience, and the second set of feelings will not be aroused when he sees himself
falling short and being negligent with regards to fulfilling Allahs rights, Mighty and
Majestic, because in all situations he will not grant his acts of obedience any weight
and he wont rely on them when it comes to hoping for Allahs mercy and pardon.
Therefore, in all situations, he is between fear and hope.

17
(tn): i.e. awareness of Allah that pushes one to obey His commands and avoid that which He has
prohibited

9
Perhaps Shayn will whisper to you that your acts of obedience and drawing nearer
to Allah have no part to play in Allah bestowing His favours upon His slaves, and
thus there is no difference between the slave carrying out such acts and desisting
from them!

However, you should know that Shayns whisperings are not the outcome of our
explanation of Ibn A Illhs words, or the words of the scholars of tawd in this
regard. Allah the Exalted has said, {My mercy extends to all things}. Did He say
after that, I will prescribe it for all of mankind? or did he He say, {I will prescribe it
for those who have taqw}? [Al-Arf 7:156]

There are two matters that the reality of a persons worship of Allah cannot be
detached from. The first is that one travels the paths of guidance and adherence to
Allahs commands and stays away from what He has prohibited. The second is that
one knows that it is by Allahs mercy and pardon, not his own efforts and deeds, that
He will obtain reward.

This is the comprehensive meaning that is comprised in Allah the Exalteds

statement: {But I am Ever-Forgiving to anyone who repents and believes and acts
rightly and then is guided.}[aha 20:82] In other words, faith and righteous action
are both obligatory, and reward comes by way of forgiveness and pardon, not by way
of compensation and deserving it.

Indeed I, by the ruling of my slavehood to Allah, implement His commands. That

levy of slavehood to Allah is on my neck. Then I spread out my hands facing the
heavens, saying, O Lord, I am Your slave, the son of Your male slave and Your
female slave. My forelock is in Your hand. Your judgement of me is assured and
Your decree concerning me is just. I ask You for Your mercy. Do not treat me the
way I deserve to be treated. Rather, treat me with what You are worthy of. Indeed,
You said, {Everyone acts according to his nature} [Al-Isr 17:84]. Your nature is
mercy, so have mercy on me. Your nature is forgiveness, so forgive me.

I say words like these without demanding any compensation for an action I feel I
have offered. Rather, I ask Him for His mercy in accordance with my weakness and
the intensity of my need. I beg Him to give just as a beggar begs for money or food
from those whom he hopes will be generous and charitable. This is how slavehood to
Allah is, Glorified and Exalted is He.

Perhaps you will say: But Allah warns the disobedient and the sinners about His
loathing and His punishment, so how can my hope in His pardon and beneficence
not diminish when I commit that which necessitates this diminishment? How, when
Allah has conditioned the attainment of His mercy on faith and taqw, when He said,
{I prescribe it for those who have taqw.}? [Al-Arf 7:156]

10
The answer is that the disobedient person who is required to remain hopeful of
Allahs generosity and pardon cannot turn to Allah in hope unless he enters His
vastness from the door of repentance.

Have you seen the disobedient person who comes knocking on Allahs door hoping
for His pardon and forgiveness? Would it make sense for him to do that while
persisting in His disobedience, relaxing in His deviations and sins?! Noit is clear
in the standards of human morals and feelings, let alone feelings of slavehood to
Allah, that this disobedient person, as much as the hope for Allahs pardon and
forgiveness thrives within him, the incentives of repentance and the feelings of
remorse he has will increase as well the determination to desist from what he was
busily engaged in. Thus, if he sincerely repents then the hope he has for Allahs
pardon will grow and not diminish, as it is assumed that he reads the Book of Allah
the Exalted and stops to examines statements such as: {Do they not know that Allah
accepts repentance from His slaves and acknowledges their charity, and that Allah is
the Ever-Relenting, the Most-Merciful?} [Al-Tawba 9:104]

And it is assumed that he has stopped and examined the likes of the adth quds that
is agreed upon18 and which the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant
him peace, narrates from his Lord, {A slave commits a sin and says, O Allah, forgive
me for my sin. So, Allah, Blessed and Exalted, says, My slave has committed a sin
and he knows he has a Lord Who forgives sins and punishes sins. Then he goes back
and sins again, and says, Which lord will forgive me my sins? He, Blessed and
Exalted, replies, My slave has committed a sin and he knows he has a Lord Who
forgives sins and punishes sins. Then he goes back and sins again, and says, Which
lord will forgive me my sins? He, Blessed and Exalted, replies, My slave has
committed a sin and he knows he has a Lord Who forgives sins and punishes sins. I
have forgiven my slave so let him do what he wants.

Therefore, there is no escape from repentance, and it is the only way that hope can
be constantly thriving in the soul of someone who is disobedient. As for the person
who continues to be busily engaged in sins and to whom repentance simply doesnt
occur, then hope for Allahs pardon also cannot possibly occur to him.

Thus, it should be clear to you after what Ive mentioned and explained that getting
involved in the opposite of what Ibn A Illh has mentioned is the other proof
against relying on ones deeds. In other words, whosoevers hope in Allahs favour
and reward increases whenever he turns to Allah with more righteous deeds, that is a
proof that he is relying on his righteous deeds and not on Allahs pardon and
forgiveness.

18
(tn): i.e. by Imams Al-Bukhr and Muslim

11
The gravity of this link between increasing in hope and increasing in righteous
deeds is obvious. If we imagine someone whose deeds increase in righteousness over
time and his obedience increases greatly, and every time that increases his
confidence in Allahs reward and promise also increases, the gravity is clear because
the conclusion this person will come to, by necessity of this link, is that he is in a
specific phase and he will be absolutely certain that he has become from the people
of Paradise and from those honoured with the blessings that Allah has promised.
Since it is according to this link between deeds and compensation, he will inevitably
believe if he reaches that phase in his righteous deeds that all of his deeds have
been accepted by Allah and that his life is full of acts of obedience. Therefore, he is
decisively from the people of Paradise! This is making a judgement19 before Allah,
and how many times, how many time, has the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless
him and grant him peace, warned against it.

Rather, the path is to distance oneself from this slippery slope and to know that
Allahs rights over His slaves are not fulfilled through acts of obedience, regardless
of how many they are or how great they are. Rather, these rights will always remain.
If it were possible to fulfil His rights, Mighty and Majestic, through acts of
obedience, the first people to do so would be the Messengers and Prophets, but
despite that we havent found any of them tying their hope in Allahs reward to their
act of obedience and drawing nearer to Him. Rather, they were all striving for
Allahs forgiveness and pardon.

Our master Ibrhm, peace and blessings be upon him and he is the intimate
friend of the All-Merciful20 - saw himself as less than the rank of the righteous from
amongst Allahs slaves, so he asked Allah to be united with them, saying, {My Lord,
give me right judgement and unite me with the righteous}. [Al-Shuar 26:83] He
would strive for Allahs forgiveness and pardon, saying, {Our Lord! Forgive me and
my parents and the believers on the Day the Reckoning takes place.} [Ibrhm
14:41]

Ysuf, peace and blessings be upon him, also saw himself as less than attaining the
rank of the righteous, so he would ask Allah to unite him with them if he was not one
of them. Did he not say, as Allah, Mighty and Majestic has informed us: {My Lord,
You have granted power to me on earth and taught me the true meaning of events.
Originator of the heavens and earth, You are my Friend in this world and the next.
So take me as a Muslim at my death and unite me with the righteous.} [Ysuf
12:101]

19
(tn): Ar. al-taall, i.e. to declare that someone is going to Paradise or the Fire
20
Ar. khall Al-Ramn

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As for the master of the Messengers and Prophets, he is the one saying what you
already know, {Not a single one of you will be entered into Paradise by his deeds.}
They said, Not even you, O Messenger of Allah? He said, {Not even me, unless
Allah covers me with His mercy.}

Therefore an individual, whoever he may be, when he is granted the tawfq to do

righteous deeds he is only fulfilling a very small portion from the levy of slavehood
to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and from the rights of the blessings that Allah has
bountifully showered on him in the life of this world, and they are many and various
innumerable blessings.

If this person, despite the acts of obedience he has been given the tawfq to do, is still
burdened under Allahs rights of Lordship over him, and burdened under the rights
of the blessings that Allah has graciously bestowed upon him, how and with what
argument can he demand that Allah honour him in return by giving him His eternal
Paradise, and that He add to the blessings that He has already given him in this life
and whose rights have still not been fulfilled by giving him the blessings of the
Hereafter that he has described and talked about clearly in His Book?

***

The quintessence of what is being said is that the human being after knowing Allah
and realising that he is His owned slave must worship Allah because he is His slave
and because Allah is his Lord; in other words, regardless of whether Allah rewards
him for his worship or doesnt reward him. Then he must ask Him for His Paradise,
as favour and gift from Him, and seek refuge in Him from His Fire and punishment,
kindly and seeking His mercy. This is how the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless
him and grant him peace, was in his supplications.

If one of us were to decide within himself that he would only worship Allah out of
desire for His Paradise such that if he knew he would never attain this reward by way
of worshiping Allah he would stop worshipping him and never worry about Allahs
Revealed Law and rules, this person would not be a Muslim or a believer by Allahs
standard and judgment. This is because he would be declaring himself as not a slave
of Allah but rather a slave of Paradise, which he is looking for a means to get to.

And here we realise the loftiness of the feelings of tawd in the intimate conversation
of Rbiah Al-Adawiyyah with her Lord, as she used to say, O Allah, when I have
worshipped You I have not worshipped You out of desire for Your Paradise nor out
of fear of Your Fire. Rather, I know that You are a Lord who deserves to be
worshipped, so I have worshipped You.

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Some superficial people think that Rbiah was expressing her lack of need of the
Paradise that Allah had promised His righteous slaves, and thus they endlessly
rebuked and reviled her. This is hastening to understand something and oppression
in judgment. Rbiah was asking Allah for His Paradise and seeking refuge in Him
from His Fire, and how many times in her intimate conversations did she feel afraid
of His punishment, which she saw herself as exposed to. How many times did she
yearn for His kindness and the Paradise of being close to Him. But she did not seek
that as compensation for her worship. Rather, she asked Him for that because He is
the Independent, the Generous, and she is the impoverished, the one desiring his
generosity.

As for her acts of obedience and worship, she was drawing nearer to Allah through
them because He is her Lord and she is His slave. She is indebted with regards to
being His slave, and therefore her slavehood presses her to worship Him and submit
to the authority of His Lordship, for nothing other than the fact that she is His slave
and because He is her Lord. And whether He grants her the blessings of His
Paradise or throws her into His painful punishment, she will never nullify the
covenant of this adherence with Him, and how could she nullify it when in every
situation she is the making of His hand and the property of His Essence.

This is the position of Rbiah, may Allah be pleased with her, and so are there
amongst the Muslims those who say, This is an incorrect position? This would make
the correct position its opposite, which would be to say, O Allah, I havent
worshipped You because You are a Lord who deserves to be worshipped but because
I desire Your Paradise! Are there people who believe in Allah, even if they are
iniquitous, who would address Allah with such impudence?

Indeed we, despite our shortcomings and our remoteness from the rank of the likes
of Rbiah Al-Adawiyyah, it is not permitted for us to address our Lord and our
Creator except with the exact speech that she would address her Lord with. Indeed
we say:

O Allah, You are our Lord and we are Your slaves. We worship You and obey Your
commands as much as we are able to, for nothing other than the fact that You are
our Lord and we are Your slaves. We know that however upright we might be on
Your path, we will always fall short, and not because of arrogance towards Your affair
but because You have decreed for us to be weak.

We will travel to you from this life of ours with many violations; mistakes, misdeeds
and deviations, hoping that we will have the tawfq to patch over them with true,
sincere repentance. We will travel to you impoverished and naked apart from the
meekness of being Your slave and being in need of You.

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And let the answer of each one of us be when we are asked, What have you come
with from your life that I established you in?: I have come with hope in Your mercy,
with hope in Your generosity. I have come impoverished apart from my slavehood to
You. That is my capital with which I stand before You and it will never give me the
courage at that point to beg for Your Paradise and the generosity of Your gifts apart
from what I know of Your favour and Your generosity and what I exult in through
being attributed to the meekness of being Your slave.

To proceed, this is the core of tawd, which must dominate the feelings of every
Muslim after being established with certainty in the intellect. It is the reality that Ibn
A Illh intended when he said, A sign that one is relying on ones deeds is the
decrease in hope when one makes a mistake.

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