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Our actions, open and hidden, and our intentions

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 23 February 2024

“If you manifest charity, how excellent it is! And if you hide it and give it to the poor, it is good for you. And it will do away with some of your evil deeds; and Allah is Aware of what you do.” — ch. 2, Al-Baqarah, v. 271

اِنۡ تُبۡدُوا الصَّدَقٰتِ فَنِعِمَّا ہِیَ ۚ وَ اِنۡ تُخۡفُوۡہَا وَ تُؤۡتُوۡہَا الۡفُقَرَآءَ فَہُوَ خَیۡرٌ لَّکُمۡ ؕ وَ یُکَفِّرُ عَنۡکُمۡ مِّنۡ سَیِّاٰتِکُمۡ ؕ وَ اللّٰہُ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُوۡنَ خَبِیۡرٌ ﴿۲۷۱﴾

“To Allah belongs whatever is in the heavens and what­ever is in the earth. And whether you manifest what is in your minds or hide it, Allah will call you to account according to it. So He forgives whom He pleases and punishes whom He pleases. And Allah is Power­ful over all things.” — ch. 2, Al-Baqarah, v. 284

لِلّٰہِ مَا فِی السَّمٰوٰتِ وَ مَا فِی الۡاَرۡضِ ؕ وَ اِنۡ تُبۡدُوۡا مَا فِیۡۤ  اَنۡفُسِکُمۡ اَوۡ تُخۡفُوۡہُ یُحَاسِبۡکُمۡ بِہِ  اللّٰہُ ؕ فَیَغۡفِرُ   لِمَنۡ یَّشَآءُ  وَ یُعَذِّبُ مَنۡ یَّشَآءُ ؕ وَ اللّٰہُ عَلٰی کُلِّ شَیۡءٍ  قَدِیۡرٌ ﴿۲۸۴﴾

Both these verses refer to two kinds of our deeds: those which are openly-known and those which are not known to other people. The first verse specifically mentions charitable deeds, while the second is more general and covers all deeds. Taking the first verse, it says that charity given openly, in public view, is an “excellent” act while hiding what you are giving in charity is “good for you”.

When you give charity openly for some national cause, or a cause of the comm­unity, it can be excellent in that it encourages those who see it to follow your example, and they are motivated to join in. People need to see an example of a good deed being done by other people like themselves in order to be inspired. But sometimes it is not appropriate to give charity openly, such as to help an individual who may feel belittled or embarrassed if he is given something in full view of others. In that case it is best to do it without knowledge of others. It says here that doing it this way is “good for you”. When a person gives openly in public view, even with a good intention, it is always possible that a feeling of impressing other people and making a display of moral superiority over them may arise in his heart. But this possibility is eliminated when giving secretly. In that sense, it is good for the soul of the giver to give secretly.

Turning to the second verse, before it mentions manifest deeds and hidden deeds, it says: “To Allah belongs whatever is in the heavens and what­ever is in the earth.” Now, various nations and religions think that they control this world and the hereafter. Those nations who become rich and powerful fall into the trap of thinking that they are the special ones who have been chosen to own the world. Those people who follow various religions believe that they own the hereafter, and that the good of the hereafter is only accessible through them. But we are told here that all of this good belongs to God, permanently and absolutely. It is no one else’s automatic right. For any nation to gain the bounties of this material world, it is only possible by following the principles which God has established for the material progress of humanity; and for the followers of any religion to gain the good of the hereafter, it is only possible if they follow the principles which God has established for the attain­ment of spiritual pro­gress. These are not rights due to anyone because of their race, or nation, or place of birth, or their religion. This is one meaning of the words: “To Allah belongs what­ever is in the heavens and what­ever is in the earth.”

Then the verse says: “And whether you manifest what is in your minds or hide it, Allah will call you to account according to it.” This tells us that God will judge a person by what is in his mind, his intention in doing the deed. There is a hadith: إِنَّمَا يُبْعَثُ النَّاسُ عَلَى نِيَّاتِهِمْ , meaning that on the Day of Judgment people will be raised up according to their intentions (Ibn Majah, ch. Zuhd, hadith 4229; Bukhari, 30:6).

An openly-done good deed, which appears on the face of it to be good, but done with a bad intention, such as to impress people, will be judged according to the intention. The intention can be concealed from people but it will be known to Allah. But this judging by Allah is not only after death on the Day of Judgment. A person doing seemingly good deeds with a bad intention will not be getting the moral benefit and improvement of character from those deeds, which is the very purpose for which Allah has commanded us to do those deeds. Then there is another point. If a person is doing good deeds with a bad intention, such as his personal gain, those will not be his only deeds. To achieve his bad intentions, he will be doing actual bad deeds as well. People will become aware of that person’s true behaviour. Therefore, it is not only in the hereafter that he will be judged and condemned by God, but he will be caught out by people in this life as well.

 On the opposite side, can a person do a bad deed with a good intention, so that Allah judges him by his good intention and not by his bad deed? Again, his other behaviour in his life, and his record, will show whether a deed he committed, which looks bad on the face of it, had a good intention behind it. If his life is full of good deeds, and there is a deed which appears to people to be objectionable, he may have done it for good reason. A prophet or a mujaddid does certain things which people condemn as bad and they make those as their reason for rejecting him. For example, the marriages of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and his fighting wars are the basis of most of the hostile criticism directed against him in our modern times. They object that he was driven by his sexual desires and was a warmonger. Yet what he did was done under God’s command with noble intentions. And if you look at the Holy Pro­phet’s life as a whole, you find that he was a person of the highest morals and very chaste, and the complete opposite of a licentious man who is only after satisfying his sexual desires. His behaviour towards his wives, of affection, sympathy, and under­standing towards them, is again a testimony that he did not marry them for his bodily desires. Similarly, while he fought battles, yet whenever possible he tried hardest to be at peace and not to be at war, and was merciful and generous towards his enemies.

Just as with openly known actions, similarly with secret or hidden actions. A person does acts of goodness privately and quietly. Another person carries out conspiracies and intrigues against others secretly. Just because these actions are secret doesn’t make them good or bad. God judges by the intention behind them.

This verse teaches us that the good or bad of an action is not determined by whether the action is done publicly or done without showing it to people, but by the intention behind it. This was one of the matters on which the Jews and the Christians went to opposite extremes. The Jews came to believe that only outward actions have any value. Religious duties, they thought, should be carried out with much ceremony to assure others that we are sticking to the religion. When Jesus arose among them, 1400 years after their religion started in the time of Moses, he condemned this behaviour. He instructed his followers to do all religious acts and acts of goodness secretly, privately, so that no one but God can know that they have performed them.

He said about prayer: “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place” (Matthew 6:6). About fasting he told his followers to fast in a way: “so that you do not appear to people to be fasting” (6:18). About charity he said: “But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your chari­table deed may be in secret” (6:3–4). His followers of later times took this to the extreme of believing that no religious act needs to be performed openly and following any set rules or structure.

Let us look at the implications of these two opposite attitudes. If a person believes that what is most important is to carry out religious duties mechanically, by bodily actions, and that the involvement of his heart and soul is only a secondary and unimportant matter, then all that he is gaining by his devotions is that people can see him being devout and religious. Gradually that becomes his aim, and even if that doesn’t become his aim, at least he is satisfied by just his bodily performance that he has completed his duty. On the opposite side, if people believe only in the importance of performing religious duties privately, without being seen by anyone, how can they teach these duties to others and be examples to them? They gradually lose the motivation to do them. The rules and structures in Islam, such as those relating to prayers or fasting, enable us to overcome carelessness and laziness and putting things off to another time and never getting around to doing them.

The Quran teaches that we must perform the outward actions as well as the private acts unknown to anyone else that we are doing them. It is wrong to think, as the Jews came to hold, that a good deed can only be one which is visible and apparent to all, and it is wrong to think, as the later Christians came to hold, that a good deed can only be one which is kept secret and hidden from others. Both kinds can be good if the intention is good and sincere. Our good deeds should be like a floating iceberg in the sea. Some of it is above the water level and visible, while most of it is under water and not visible.

Then there is the statement here: “So He forgives whom He pleases and punishes whom He pleases.” This means that no human being can claim to know that certain people will be forgiven by God and certain other people will be punished. We can only know the ways which lead to forgiveness and those which lead to punishment. Even regarding the Holy Prophet himself the Quran says:

“You (O Prophet) have no concern in the matter whether He turns to them (mercifully) or punishes them; …. He forgives whom He pleases and punishes whom He pleases. And Allah is Forgiving, Merciful” (3:128–129).

The meaning of “whom He pleases” is not that God is like a king or dictator Who doesn’t follow any rules, but purely out of his whim or mood of the day He arbitrarily decides whether to forgive someone or to punish him. The meaning is that only God has the full knowledge for deciding who deserves forgive­ness and who deserves punishment. On the basis of His perfect know­ledge, God may forgive someone who we think should be punished and He may punish someone who we think should be forgiven.

So may Allah enable us all to do both open and secret deeds of goodness, and always with good intentions, Ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk