FOR THE SAKE OF ALLAH

Hey, guess who’s back…ok I never really left, just been silent, busy as usual…( Not sure why I feel the need to explain that every time but…ahhh when it feels right, what can you do?) anyway without further ado…

Opening with the following Hadith seems fitting:

It is narrated on the authority of Amirul Mu’minin, Abu Hafs ‘Umar bin al-Khattab, radiyallahu ‘anhu, who said:

“I heard the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam, say: “Actions are (judged) by motives (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended. Thus, he whose migration (hijrah) was to Allah and His Messenger, his migration is to Allah and His Messenger; but he whose migration was for some worldly thing he might gain, or for a wife he might marry, his migration is to that for which he migrated.”

[Al-Bukhari & Muslim]

It might not seem obvious but that right there is the formula to happiness. Honestly doing things for the sake of Allah is the secret to happiness… Seriously, no joke, but it’s no secret that, it’s not easy at all!

I found out that stories deliver the message better than explanations, so here is a little background story to how I came up with this topic.

So I had planned to do something for a friend and when I told the person my plan, the response was close to “good for you”.  Yea it didn’t quite make sense for a few seconds and I wasn’t actually upset but after thinking about it, I felt disappointed that the person didn’t recognize that I have very little to benefit from doing it. Either way I still wanted to do it for the person… but it was still stuck in my head, and thinking a little more I realized I shouldn’t even have been disappointed. I should be doing it solely for the sake of Allah and if my only intention was that I shouldn’t be disappointed in anyway, because it wouldn’t matter whether the person appreciated it or not.  What I thought I was doing “for them” isn’t really “for them” it’s for me (if we are going to be totally honest that is.)

What I really wanted was to be rewarded by the only one who can reward me for my deeds beyond my expectations and that is Allah. Am I making sense? I felt like I might have lost some of you on the way here… so starting from the top.. So I had planned to do something…(Gotchaaa!) ok you probably saw that one coming… yea moving on

This wasn’t the only incident when I realized doing things for the Sake of Allah makes us happier, because we don’t expect anything from anyone else. I mean we might have heard this quote before “the secret to happiness is low expectations” , my take on it is; it is half true half false. Its half true in the sense that lowering your expectations on what you get from people is more likely to keep you away from disappointment, its half false because, we can never really have low expectations, so instead lets have the highest expectations for what we do, from Allah, and trust me, still our highest expectations still will not meet this

As Allah mentions in the Quran

Surah As-Sajdah 32:17

“And no soul knows what has been hidden for them of comfort for eyes as reward for what they used to do.”

Well this post barely grazes the depth of doing things for the sake of Allah, but our attention span usually doesn’t go two pages straight per post. So my closing statement is,

“Always check our intentions” and a good way to do that is to see if when we do something good and later feel upset that someone or no one seemed to appreciate it then it’s time to correct our intentions and make them for the sake of Allah. And Allah is the most Appreciative.

As Allah mentions in the Quran

Surah At-Taghabun 64:17

“If you loan Allah a goodly loan, He will multiply it for you and forgive you. And Allah is Most Appreciative and Forbearing.”

And so

Surah Al- An’am 6:162

Say, “Indeed, my prayer, my rites of sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah , Lord of the worlds.”

Love you all for the sake of Allah

-Abd