Islam for Muslims
- THE FAITH OF MUSLIMS
- GOOD DEEDS IN PERSONAL LIFE
- GOOD DEEDS IN SOCIAL LIFE
Some Ideal Signs of Good Deeds
17: SOME IDEAL SIGNS OF GOOD DEEDS
Introduction: It is not enough that you completely practice required quantity of good deeds like prayer, charity etc. It is also necessary that you pay respect to the quality of whatever good deeds you perform. This quality will determine both the rate of acceptance as well as reward “according to (your good) deeds” (6:132). In fact, people mostly act according to their own way, but “only God knows whose deeds are best guided” (17:84). We therefore now discuss how you can fashion your good deeds to suit God’s standard.
(1) Navigating the Straight Path Shown in Quran: Among various alternative ways of doing things, only the straight path charted in the Quran and Hadith ensures God’s pleasure and thereby success of good deeds. “If you differ in anything among yourselves, refer to God and His Prophet. Verily, this is my way leading straight, follow it; do not follow (other) paths as the Guidance of God is the (only) Guidance” (4:59; 6:153; 2:120). Since all the lines (other than the straight line) connecting two points are relatively curved, any paths other than prescribed by God, cannot ensure benefits for the humanity.
For example, you will be invariably on the right path if you follow God’s advice by sending words of blessings (‘dorud’) on the Prophet. However, the path may not remain straight any more if you offer ‘dorud’ with made up rituals of standing up with hands crossed over the belly like in salat.
Hadith Second to Quran: It is important that whenever you face a choice on any important decision or action (ex: regarding marriage, divorce, business etc.), you look for advice from the Quran as a top priority and “purify religion as in God’s sight” (4:146). If you don’t get any solution therein possibly in the case of less important matters, then you need to seek (as the second priority) examples from Prophet’s life (‘sunnah’) as contained mainly in his six authentic Hadith. Needless to say, on any particular matter, his genuine tradition is not supposed to be at variance with God’s revelations.
Straight Path Detects Curved Path: If you strictly stick to the above Right path, it will be easy for you to identify the alternative misleading provisions by means of comparison. The examples given below will make the point clear. If someone wants to sell the idea that when you remember God at heart for fulltime (daily 24 hours minus sleep time) at a higher level of spirituality (known as marefah in mystical Sufism), you do not need to practice salat (as shariah) as part-time remembrance (taking about an hour daily). You will check this against the Quranic insistence to worship God as He “has directed you” (2:198) and practical demonstration of His Prophet, then you can easily dismiss the above idea as a trick of ‘satan’ for inspiring laziness to avoid prayer. This is because there was no spiritual leader greater than the Prophet and there had never been a single case of his unexcused missing of prayers during his lifetime.
(2) Good Deeds Only for God’s Pleasure: For making your virtuous act eligible for God’s acceptance, it must be primarily done “for the sake of God alone” and not for earthly “reward” or “thanks” (76:9). While you need to intend divine pleasure before performing your deeds, after doing it your mind should bend in gratitude for His enabling role. You should never regret after doing a good deed with risk of spoiling it, nor should you ever make promise or use “God’s (name) in your oaths against doing good” (2:224). Given “the intention of your hearts” (33:5) which really counts, if you focus on God’s pleasure, that will act like a radar for reaching your deeds to ultimate goal of acceptance.
By contrast, if you give central position to any other intentions like public show, gaining fame or compensation etc., your deeds are likely to be fruitless, on charge of partnership sin. God speaks against those “who (want their prayers) to be seen (of people)” and also those who spend their money “to be seen of people” (107:6; 4:38). God's pleasure must be the main purpose of good deeds while there might be some secondary purposes or uninteded effects like exercise from salat, weight loss from fasting, business income during hajj etc. Likewise, you cannot ordinarily be greedy to “claim any monetary benefits” if you are solvent. If you are poor, you can take “what is just and reasonable” compensation, given the idea that the less you take here on earth, the more you get there in the Afterlife (4:6).
Examples: Public show may be exemplified by your tendency to perform ‘salat’ publicly (in mosque) in a better way (or in larger quantity) than done privately (at home), seeking a better public image by needless showing or drumbeating your personal prayers, adopting the title ‘hajji’ for social status upon completion of ‘hajj’, sacrificing expensive animals for Qurbani only to be competitive or impressive, using cap or long Islamic dress as a shield from any criminal charges and so on.
Secret of Success: For making your prayer a success, you better do the following:
(i) Try to perform optional prayers more in private, following ‘sunnah’ of the Prophet, unless there is a powerful reason to do otherwise such as for motivating others by your good personal example. In case you choose to pray ‘nafl’ openly, do that only as much as needed, keeping its quality unchanged, without showcasing that needlessly, excessively and boastfully.
(ii) Rules are different for compulsory deeds like salat, zakat etc. You should neither publicize nor conceal them. Because if you deliberately keep your mandatory salat from public view (ex: by always avoiding congressional salat), then people undesirably may gain negative influence by misunderstanding you.
(3) Prioritizing Compulsory (‘fard’) Deeds over Optional (‘nafl’) Ones:
The proverb “Penny-wise and Pound-foolish” is not consistent with Islam. As a Muslim, you are required to accord outsize priority to performing pound-grade high value essentials based in Quran e.g. the Five Pillars, truthfulness, oath keeping, avoid hypocrisy etc. This means you will invest more time and energy for these obligations and you will not skip them on nominal excuses, such as missing a timely compulsory salat for attending a wedding party. By contrast, penny-level optional deeds which the Prophet sometimes did but not always e.g. wearing turban, flowing robes, clipping nails on Fridays etc. are secondary in importance. You should often or sometimes practice them in love for the Prophet but cannot misuse them for earthly benefits e.g. using Islamic dress as a shield from public beating for pickpocketing. Overall, if you treat both compulsory and optional in the same bundle or for worse, if you give more importance to optional deeds than compulsory deeds, then you may not be able to perform ‘fard’ in a deserving fashion. Be reminded that violation of compulsory deeds is badly sinful while that of optional ones is not.
Examples: Some examples will make the point clear. If you face shortage of due time, you should use that to perform a compulsory prayer in place of an optional one. You must clear your ‘zakat’ obligation before finishing your money on optional charity. During Ramadan, you cannot substitute compulsory fasting with any personally intended optional fasting which may be done at other times. You cannot give more importance to prayers at any nights other than the ‘Night of Power’ which is the only night divinely certified as “better than thousand months” (97:3). In this manner, you must give primary place to compulsory and secondary one to optional deeds.
How to Prioritize ‘Fard’: You should do justice to compulsory deeds by performing properly and regularly (if applicable). In no event, you should put compulsory deeds behind optional ones. For example, it is not right that you spend the whole of a holy night doing optional prayers and then you retire to sleep, spoiling your morning prayers. You cannot risk expiration of your prime time for ‘fard’ salat by walking long time to a far-lying mosque hoping to gain extra rewards by counts of every step. Likewise, it is necessary for a Muslim woman to cover her head, but in doing so she should not ignore covering more deserving organs like part of legs or forearms.
Why to Prioritize ‘Fard’: In fact, ‘fard’ should be treated like what it means, that is, compulsory and ‘nafl’ as optional. As a metaphor, the example of ‘nafl’ as a molotov cocktail compares to ‘fard’ as atomic bomb. The Prophet, therefore, during sickness did not hesitate to attend ‘fard’ Jamat even by leaning on others’ shoulder. But in matters of optional rituals, he deliberately went off and on and occasionally he dropped off whenever he considered necessary such as during sickness or traveling. He did not practice any ‘nafl’ in unbroken manner so his followers would not copy him exactly, elevating the ‘nafl’ to the status of ‘fard’.
This, however, should not contradict with the Prophet’s advice made in different context that ‘nafl’ prayers, even be in small quantity, should be done with regularity. The real essence of this Hadith is that, once adopted for practice, a ‘nafl’ should not be abandoned without any reason (under devil’s incitement) but that can be done for good reasons like sickness.
(4) Maximizing Good Deeds: Gravitation Law: Normal human psychology, similar to the law of gravitation in physics, suggests that the more of good deeds you do, you will feel a natural tendency to do more of their kind. Accordingly, the greater the amount of good deeds you perform, the higher will be the accumulation to your credit account. Emphasis on maximizing the quantity of good deeds comes from the verses “celebrate His praises night and day; labor hard (in prayer) whenever you are free and turn attention to your Lord” (21:20; 94:7/8). Such ‘hard labor’ is made possible by your physical fitness which can be enhanced through regular exercise.
While the compulsory deeds are limited in number (5 Pillars plus few more), the optional deeds offer you open-ended opportunities to multiply. So you should be “quick in emulating good deeds and strive together (as in a race) to perform (more of them)” (21:90; 2:148). Another way of maximizing the quantity is by “holding fast to God” with “constancy and patience in His worship” (4:146; 19:65). This means you cannot be a seasonal observant (e.g. practicing too much in Ramadan and too less for rest of the year) as your “duty to Him is always due” (16:52). Sometimes, steady practices leave a visible trail of good deeds such as “on their faces are their marks, (being) the traces of this prostration” to the appreciative notice of God (48:29).
Focusing On Accumulation: Practically speaking, there is no finish line to the quantity of optional deeds that you should perform. For example, you could silently make dua or ‘zikr’ during your leisure time or in the middle of your waiting for someone e.g. doctor. The companions of the Prophet used to spend very minimum time in making a living in order to spend maximum time with him which was their preferred form of ‘ebadah’. Similarly, if you are a professional like a doctor or teacher, you can maximize your performance credit by donating your services to the needy clients for divine pleasure.
(5) Bettering the Quality of Deeds: While your goal should be to maximize the quantity of good deeds, but you cannot do so at the expense of their quality. If you focus only on multiplying the quantity and therefore ignore the quality, then you may be “of those whose efforts have been wasted” even if they “think they are acquiring good” (18:104). For example, salat congregation at a local mosque may earn you up to 27-500 times of credits (soab) of solitary salat but you may get none if you participate with faulty ablution. Likewise, in a rush to recite the entire Quran say during the Ramadan, if you make big mistakes in pronunciation, then that might be worse than reciting fewer verses accurately. You are warned “not to move your tongue concerning (the Quran) to make haste therewith” (75:16).
Elements of Quality: With focus on quality of deeds, the Quran condemns praying “without earnestness and with showiness”, with “proud feeling”, “hastiness”, “weariness” or “unwillingness” (4:142; 32:15; 17:11; 21:19; 9:54). On the other hand, it encouraged praying with “fearful heart”, “love and reverence”, “true piety”, “sincere devotion”, “constancy and patience” among others (23:60; 21:90; 10:105; 39:2; 19:65). You can thus do justice to the quality of prayers by offering them timely, carefully and attentively. In the same fashion, fasting quality may be upgraded through devotion of more time to recitation of Quran, prayer etc. or giving charity without attaching any conditions. Importantantly, once you perform any good deed, you should not regret for that to avoid loss of benefits.
Other Elements: In order to enhance the quality of your good deeds, you need to be particular about compliance with God’s directions. Everyone is born into or placed in different individual situation such as being an orphan, a needy, burdened with old parents or widowed sister none to look after etc. You should meet these challenges calmly and do things as best as you can for measuring up to God’s standard. It is important that you do not bypass a present obligation in order to move fast to a future goal whatever that be, by keeping in mind the metaphor that a broken bridge cannot help you cross a river. Accordingly, you can go on pilgrimage only after you arrange for badly needed care of your ailing parents or vulnerable family. In short, you should apply your common sense and piety to figure out what is good for you.
Balanced Package: While addressing the quality, the package of your good deeds should be a diverse and balanced one, covering a range from spiritual to financial to physical types. In fact, quality deeds do not mean only ‘prayers on velvet mats’. You should therefore not shy about taking part in physically challenging deeds. These are exampled as saving a boy from drowning, washing a body or digging a grave, cleaning after a bedridden parent, giving seat to an ailing passenger, making court appearance as a pivotal witness etc. In this way, you can make painful but gainful sacrifices in order to act upon the proverb ‘make your good deeds shiny by making your body dusty, if needed’.
(6) Following a Middle Course: The true Islamic path goes along the middle ground between the upper extreme (known differently as conservatism, radicalism, extremism, orthodoxy, fanaticism, fundamentalism etc.) and lower extreme (like liberalism, modernism, passivism, progressivism, permissiveness etc.). While the lower extreme may often mean a lax in morality (ex: avoiding marriage to have adulterous relations with too many), the upper extreme (ex: choosing celibacy to maximize ‘ebadat’) may impose needless hardships. Between these two extremes, the middle course appears to be a better option with clear divine approval, “Be moderate in your pace” (31:19). Such moderation is likely to have comparative advantage over upper or lower extremes like the way springtime is better than extreme hot or cold weather. For example, such middle course not only makes your life easier while remaining morally strong, but it also may help building bridges between strict practioners of Islam (e.g. Salafists) and its liberal adherents (e.g. Sufis).
Quran: The Quran introduces the Muslims as a “balanced” nation (2:143). It then clearly denounces “committing excesses” (5:87) in religion as a bad practice. In preference, it inspires you to “seek a middle course” in religious practices (17:110). For example, it advises you to recite for prayer “neither aloud nor in low voice” (17:110). Likewise, it offers a middle course in spending by avoiding both miserliness and extravagance (17:29). In another example, Islam outlaws “monasticism” (57:27) which some people choose for themselves as an extreme measure in abstention from God’s permissible blessing of marriage.
Hadith: Once an associate asked the Prophet about observing optional fasting on daily basis but he instead advised him to fast on alternative days at the most. Despite such principle of moderation well in place, some of his companions showed bias for extremism by overstepping his ideals. They faced God’s warning “Do not put yourselves ahead of God and His Prophet” (49:1).
Downside of Extremism: Moderation is oftentimes better than extremism which tends to be counter-productive as appears from examples below. (i) Out of over-reliance on God, if you do not take medicine, that will not only be a violation of the Prophet’s tradition but also your prolonged sickness may rob your fitness to pray. (ii) You spend so many hours for prayers in mosque that you do not have time to work for honest income (an ebadah) and therefore you bother people by borrowing or begging from. (iii) You go to Mecca for optional pilgrimage (‘umra’) every year and thereby you are left with less money to perform compulsory ‘hajj’ or spend for compulsory charity (‘zakat’) in your poor neighborhood. (iv) Likewise, you turn into a perfect Muslim during one month of Ramadan and for the rest of 11 months you do not even come close to prayers. This is a clear violation of God’s ruling that you always “remain steadfast in religion” (42:13).
(7) Reliance on Self-Help: The following points are important in this regard:
Make Personal Efforts: You are personally responsible for building up your own mountain of good deeds and you can not appoint any proxy to act on your behalf (ex: paying others to pray for you). Similarly, you cannot think of any middleman (ex: a saint) for your connection with God or gaining “nearness to God” (39:3), as you are supposed to make direct link with Him.
Race in Good Deeds: You are not only allowed but are also encouraged to “strive together (as in a race) toward all that is good” to outrival any high performing religious persons (2:148). This also points to the fact that there is no reservation of high place with God unless what you earned through your own good performance. Chances are therefore alive for you that by means of piety and good deeds you also can come closer to God than many others who appear to be extremely religious including even your revered saint, religious teacher or elderly relative, as some examples.
Avoid Other’s Sins: Do not let others’ sinful behavior have any negative impact on you so you do not “incline to their wrongdoing” (11:113), as they are not your role model but only your Prophet is. Show your better performance compared to others rather than wasting your time by criticizing them. Then thank God for guiding you to better behavior compared to others while at the same time make dua for their guidance.
Conclusion: The above discussion shows how you can maximize your acceptable good deeds, exposing you to infinite blessings of God.