What follows is a summary of a commentary given by Jamaal Ad-Din on an-Nawawis collection of 40

hadeeth. (The summarization ratio is 2:70). This is the first of the 40 hadith.
--
ibn Ajmal

“Surely, all actions are [caused] by intentions, and, surely, every man shall have only what he intended.
Therefore, he whose migration was for Allah and His messenger, then his migration was for Allah and
His messenger. And he whose migration was to attain some worldly benefit or to marry a woman, his
migration is for that which he migrated.”

Virtues of this Hadith

Abu Ubaid said that the Prophet (asws) encompassed all the affairs of this world by saying, “Whoever
enters anything into this religion of ours that does not belong, will have it rejected.” And he encompassed
all the affairs of the hereafter in one sentence, “Surely, all actions are caused by intention…” Imam Abu
Dawud said this hadith is half of Islam, while Imam Ash-Shafii said that it is half of knowledge. Imam
Ahmad said that the foundation of Islam rests on three hadith, this one, “whoever introduced anything
into this affairs of ours that is not from it, will have it rejected,” and “the permissible is clear and what is
forbidden is clear.”

Circumstances behind this Hadith

On the authority of ibn Mas`uud, it was related that a man migrated from Makkah to Medina to marry
Umm Qais. Jibril informed the Prophet about his corrupt intention, and so the Prophet called a single
person, Umar, and told him the said hadith.

Linguistic Comments:
Ø The word innamaa implies emphasis and exclusiveness.
Ø The word al-`amaal is in the plural and definite form, meaning all actions, whether they be statements
or actions or either the heart or body.
Ø The particle ba , here, is the ba –as-sababiyyah, or the ba of causation. Therefore all actions are caused
by intentions.
Ø Some people say niyyah denotes the seriousness in a persons search for something, or a resolve inside
the heart. Others say that it comes from the word al-nawa, which means distance, as if what is being
sought is beyond a persons’ capability. Therefore, his intention becomes his means to achieve it. Imam
Ibn Al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah said that that intention is knowledge of what is being done along with the
purpose behind why it is being done. As-Suyuuti said that intention is the drive in a person’s heart that
pushes him to what he wants.

Paradise is due to imân, you level in paradise is due to your actions, and your staying there is due to your
intention to serve Allah forever. Hellfire is due to disbelief, your depth in hell is due to your evil, and
your staying there forever is due to your intention to oppose Allah forever.

Allah did not put us here to see who could do the most acts of worship with no value. Quantity is then of
little importance, but quality is of great importance. The Prophet (s) said, “Surely, Allah does not look at
your shapes or your wealth. But He looks at your hearts and your actions.” (Muslim) The place of the
intention is in the heart. The intention with respect to the deeds is like the soul with respect to the body.
To say that declaring the intention is recommended should not be done because calling something
recommended (mustahab) requires proof from the Sharia.

Ibn Uthaymeen said that it is impossible to perform an act of worship without an intention [except in the
cases of insanity or sleep-walking]. Also to completely not notice a half dressed girl standing next to you
and not look at her is not equal to knowing that she is there and not looking at her. Every act of worship
that a rational, freely acting person does is a result of wanting to do it. However, intentions differ as wide
as the east is from the west. A person who desired Allah will be rewarded accordingly, and a person who
desired this world will be given whatever portion of it Allah wishes to give him if He chooses to do so.
(17:18)

Ibn Ajlaan said that, “a deed is useless unless it is accompanied by three things, “taqwa, niyyah, and
sunnah.” The proper niyyah for performing any act of worship is to do it for the sake of Allah, seeking
Allah’s pleasure. No act of worship should be done for the sake of showing off to the people because
hypocrites try to show their good deeds off. However there are exceptions because once a man came to
the Prophet and asked him, “A man fights for the sake of bounty, another fights to be mentioned, and
another fights for show. Which fights for the cause of Allah?” The Prophet relied, “The one who fights to
make the word of Allah supreme is the one who fights for the cause of Allah.” Here the Prophet did not
negate the other intentions that were mentioned because if the intention was to encourage others to go on
jihad by showing the bounty off, or by being remembered by the kids growing up who then see the
mujahid as a role model, or to show bravery on the battle field to keep the esteem of the Muslims high –
done for the sake of Allah – is a good intention because underlying it is the desire for Allah’s word to be
supreme.

It is true that Allah will even reward us for our good intentions. Even if your intention was right, for
example in giving charity, but you accidentally gave it to a rich person then “for you is what you
intended.” Intentions also go beyond actions, and proof for this is the following hadith, “In Medina, there
is a group of people we left behind. We do not pass through any ravine or valley except that they are with
us [in reward]. They have been kept back due to valid excuses.” However, if a person makes the intention
to fast every Monday and Thursday yet those days come and go and he doesn’t fast, although there were
no obstacles preventing him from actually fasting, then that means that his intention was not well-
established, or that he was insincere. If the intention is truly there, then the act is inevitable.

Allah said in a hadith qudsiyyah that, “I am the self sufficient that I am in no need of having an associate.
Therefore, he who does an act for someone else’s sake as well as Mine, will have that action renounced
by Me to him who he associated with Me.” (Sahih Muslim) Therefore, the actions of the disbelievers, no
matter how humanitarian or utilitarian they may seem to be, will get them nothing in the hereafter except
fire because of either their atheism or polytheism. “Say: shall I not inform you of the greatest losers with
respect to deeds? Those who efforts have been wasted in the life of this world while they thought that
they were doing good by their deeds. These are those that deny the signs of their Lord and the meeting
with Him. So their works are in vain, and on the Day of Resurrection We shall not give them any weight.
That will be their recompense, hell, because they disbelieved and took My signs and My messengers by
way of jest and mockery.” (18:103-106)

Allah would not have obligated us to have a pure intention, to stay free of the lesser shirk, if it was
beyond our ability to do so. Regardless of how hard some people have said that purifying their intention
is, that does not mean that it is impossible or even necessarily a difficult thing – it’s just their opinion.
Remedies recommended for people trying to strengthen themselves are to ask Allah to make it easier, and
to study Allah’s 99 names and attributes to help him understand Allah. NOTE: If you do something for
the sake of Allah and the people praise you for it, be happy because the Prophet said, “this is a prompt
part of good news that the believer receives.”

“Every man shall that which he

intended”
The first sentence is the cause, and this second sentence is the consequence. Meaning that every action
has an intention behind it, and every person will be rewarded or not according to his intention. Ibn Rajab
explicitly said that if a person had a good intention, then his reward would be good. But if a person had an
evil intention then his reward will be evil. Therefore, the goodness or evil of the reward is directly related
to the goodness or evil of the intention.
“Thus, he whose migration was for Allah and His messenger, his migration was for Allah and His
messenger.”

The Arabic construction here is a bit peculiar because there is a restatement in the second part of the
sentence. The Messenger might have used this construction in order to avoid using a single pronoun
“them” to refer to Allah and himself. Another explanation is that he (s) wanted to remind everyone about
the nobility and greatness of the deed and its objective. Anyhow, Ibn Rajab said that whoever migrated
out of the land of kufr to the land of Islam to practice Islam out of love for Allah and His Rasuul(s),
desiring submission to Him, is one that truly migrated to Allah and His messenger, and has achieved the
objective of this life and the hereafter.

The Prophet said, “Hijrah will not be discontinued until repentance is discontinued. And repentance will
not be discontinued until the sun rises from the west.” And he also said, “Hijrah will not be discontinued
as long as there is jihad.” The different types of hijrah are: (1) leaving the land of kufr to the land of Islam
whether because of the kufr, or bid`ah, or relatively too much haraam (2) to leave a place where you fear
bodily harm or fear that your property may be taken. (3) The Prophet (s) also said, “The muhaajir is the
one who avoids what Allah has prohibited.” (Bukhari)

“He whose migration was to achieve some worldly benefit or to take some woman in marriage, his
migration s for that which he migrated.”

Hijrah for the sake of the dunya has evil affects on such peoples’ Islam and imân. People migrate to the
west simply for economic betterment, and they or their kids apostate the deen. Is economic betterment,
which is not guaranteed, worth the hereafter? To some it is. However, it makes you think that if these
people can sacrifice the akhirah for the dunya, can’t we sacrifice the dunya (derivatives: dina’ah =
“lower”, adna = “closer”) for the sake of Allah and get the hereafter? The mention of a woman, explicitly,
may have been because of the affect the opposite sex may have on a person. The first trial that afflicted
the children of Israel was concerning women, and the Prophet (s) said that he had left no greater fitnah
behind than women.

Quranic Authorship Theories: A Critical Review

The Quran contains many explicit statements that it is “a revelation from the Lord of the worlds”[1]
thereby denying any human authorship. In spite of that, assuming Muhammad to be the author of the
Quran, critics have desperately contradicted each other in trying to account for a motive for the book’s
production. Some detractors claim that he was an opportunist, most allege that he was a liar, while others
declare that he must have been crazy after realizing the obvious problems with the previous two positions.

Although Muhammad renounced authorship of the Quran, several scholars are of the opinion that,
motivated by the prospects of power[2] and economic gain,[3] he was an opportunist that deliberately lied
in attributing it to God. However, such allegations do not agree with historical facts. In the most difficult
period of persecution during Muhammad’s prophethood, one of the chiefs of Mecca was sent to
Muhammad with the proposal that he could have anything he wanted if he stopped preaching. The offer
presented by Utbah Ibn Rabiah, who later failed to strangle Muhammad to death, was as follows: “Son of
my brother, you are, as you know, a noble of the tribe and your lineage assures you a place of honor. And
now you have brought to your people a matter of grave concern, whereby you have split their community,
declared their way of life to be foolish, spoken shamefully of their gods and their religion, and called their
forefathers infidels. So hear what I propose, and see if any of it be acceptable to you. If it is wealth you
seek, we will put together a fortune for you from our various properties that you may be the richest man
among us. If it is honor you seek, we will make you our overlord and take no decision without your
consent; and if you would have kingship, we will make you our king.”[4] Although Muhammad simply
recited a portion of the Quran[5] in response to this bid, there could be no better offer had he composed
the Quran as a means of getting power and riches.

The truthfulness of Muhammad warrants examination in order to show the absurdity of other allegations
containing the underlying notion that he was a liar.[6] The confidence that Muhammad had was the result
of being convinced that he really received revelation, whereas the main trait of a person who knows that
he is lying is a lack of confidence, which is easily detectable in behavior. Abu Lahab, the Prophet’s uncle,
hated Islam to such an extent that he used to follow the Prophet around for the sake of contradicting him.
About ten years before Abu Lahab died, a little chapter in the Quran was revealed that stated that he
would never become Muslim and would go to Hell. To destroy the Quranic claim of heavenly authorship,
Abu Lahab only had to say, “I want to become a Muslim now! How do you like that? What do you think
of your divine revelation now?” Although that is exactly the kind of behavior one would expect from
him, he never did that. Muhammad’s confidence demonstrated in this incident is evidence that he
completely trusted what was revealed to him, otherwise no logical explanation can be made in defense of
someone taking such a risk of being discredited. Another portrayal of Muhammad’s conviction is when
both he and Abu Bakr migrated to Medina. The Quraysh, now determined to kill Muhammad, were
pursuing him to prevent him from leading the growing population of Muslims in Medina. While taking
refuge in a cave along the way, the Qurayshi assassins were guided by a shepherd to the very cave that
Muhammad and Abu Bakr were in. “The voices were now not far off - five or six men at least - and they
were still approaching. The Prophet looked at Abu Bakr, and said: “Grieve not, for verily God is with us.”
And then he said, “What thinkest thou of two when God is their third?” (Martin Lings, Muhammad, His
Life Based on the Earliest Sources, p. 117) Both Muhammad’s composure and speech illustrates his
truthfulness because a liar would have panicked and been the first of the two to try to find another way
out of the cave. Furthermore, whereas Muhammad ran the risk of being killed on many occasions in that
he fought twenty-seven battles during his lifetime to uphold the truth, a fake, knowing his fraud, would
certainly have given up.

Understanding the difficulty in calling Muhammad a fake or liar due to the confidence he exhibited, his
critics lash out by calling him insane. The difficulty with this theory is that the Quran contains facts that
could not have come from a madman. For example, in the Quran, Allah asks, “Did you not see how your
Lord dealt with the (people of) Aad, of the (city of) Iram, with lofty pillars, the like of which were not
produced in (all) the land?” (Quran 89:6-8) Apart from being mentioned in the Quran, there were no other
historical records about the city of Iram. However, in 1975, Dr. Paolo Mathiae of the University of Rome
unearthed a 23rd-century palace in the ancient city of Elba that contained records of business transactions
with Iram.[7] It is inconceivable that an insane person could name and describe the architecture of a
forgotten city that existed roughly three thousand years before he was born. Also, in the Quran a person
finds factual references to the sex of “soldier” bees, the large peg-like roots of mountains, time zones,
microscopic embryological descriptions, and laws that have guided thousands of millions for over
fourteen centuries. The Quran brought about a revolution in Arabia because it addressed the mind, which
consequently brought about desired actions, to such an extent its message transformed people barely
considered human to rulers of the world in nearly three decades. It is therefore inconceivable that a man,
known to be illiterate and accused of being crazy, produced such an unrivaled recital and precept that
dwarfed the knowledge of its time, while not being outdated today.

Because the above refutations addressed the fundamental concepts in the theories presented by
Muhammad’s critics, any future charges will differ only in wording, and therefore be equally invalid. If
Muhammad’s critics are still “in doubt as to what We have revealed to Our servant, then produce a
chapter the like thereof; and call your witnesses and helpers, besides Allah, if you are truthful. But if you
cannot - and of a surety you cannot - then fear the fire whose fuel is men and stones, which is prepared
for unbelievers.” (Quran 2:23-24)

mhtml:mid://00000127/ - _ftnref1[1] Quran 56:80

mhtml:mid://00000127/ - _ftnref2[2] “Furthermore, Weber seemed to imply that the Prophet realized
‘more and more clearly’ that his position depended upon the successful mobilization of warriors, whom
Weber identified as the carrier group of the new religion.” (Byron S. Turner, Weber and Islam: A Critical
Study, p. 34)

mhtml:mid://00000127/ - _ftnref3[3] “A case has been made that mere economic gain was the inspiration
for Muhammad’s religious revolution. That case does not suit the facts as they are known.” (The New
Catholic Enclycopedia, 9:1001)
mhtml:mid://00000127/ - _ftnref4[4] Martin Lings, Muhammad, His Life Based on the Earliest Sources,
p. 60-61.

mhtml:mid://00000127/ - _ftnref5[5] Quran 41:1-38

mhtml:mid://00000127/ - _ftnref6[6] Other accusations state that Muhammad produced the Quran, and
falsely attributed it to Allah for either the sake of uniting the Arabs or for moral reformation. Others
charge that he had stolen from Jewish and Christian sources.

mhtml:mid://00000127/ - _ftnref7[7] See: La Fay, Howard. “Elba: The Splendor of an Unknown

Empire.” National Geographic, Dec. 1978: 731-759

From an Exaggerated Prophecy to a Comparable Profile

Christians argue that Deuteronomy 18:181, a prophecy in which God informed Moses that He would
raise up a prophet similar to him from among the brethren of the Jews, refers to Jesus because both Jesus
and Moses were Jews and prophets. However, if these are the only two criteria derived from the prophecy
then all of the other Jewish prophets fulfilled it also. Other than the two indecisive criteria previously
mentioned, Jesus is actually dissimilar to Moses from his most superficial characteristics to his alleged
divinity, while "The only man in history who can be compared even remotely to him is Mahomet." (Rev.
James L. Dow, Collins Gem Dictionary of the Bible p.403)

A cursory inspection of the life of Jesus indicates noticeable differences from the lives of Moses and
Muhammad in terms of their biographical details. For example, Jesus was conceived miraculously with
only a mother, while both Moses and Muhammad were conceived naturally. Although Jesus remained a
bachelor, Moses and Muhammad both married and had children. Christ proclaimed his mission at the age
of thirty, while Moses and Muhammad received prophethood at the mature age of forty. Further, whereas
Jesus never led his followers in a mass exodus, Moses lead his people out of Egypt, and Muhammad also
emigrated with his followers from Mecca to Medina in order to flee from persecution. According to
Christianity, the Messiah was killed by crucifixion, while both Moses and Muhammad died natural deaths
due to age. Finally, while Jesus is said to be in heaven sitting on God's hand, both Moses and Muhammad
were buried exactly where they died.

A closer investigation of the biographical details of these prophets in terms of their religious and secular
endeavors reveals more pronounced differences between Jesus and both Moses and Muhammad. The
Messiah was rejected by his people and was a failed statesman. Jesus "Came to his own, but his own
received him not" (John 1:11), and even today the Jews reject him as the savior who would establish a
kingdom comparable to that of king David. In fact, Jesus failed miserably in establishing a state, which
makes him extremely dissimilar to both Moses and Muhammad, and he is even quoted to have said, "My
kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I
should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from hence." (John 18:36) Moses and
Muhammad were kings, lawgivers, and architects of empires who provided a social structure for their
people, secured their welfare, and guided them to belief in God. Concerning the latter three functions,
Jules Masserman, a psychoanalyst at Chicago University, said, "Perhaps the greatest leader of all time
was Mohammed, who combined all three functions. To a lesser degree, Moses did the same."
(Masserman, Jules. "Who Were History's Greatest Leaders?" Time, Jul. 1974)

Finally, an examination of the three prophets with regards to divinity reveals the immense differences
between them. Whereas Jesus was chosen to be the begotten son of the Almighty at the commencement
of his mission, both Moses and Muhammad were simply elected as Messengers. Through a series of
small slips of the pen that became entire passages in the Bible, Jesus became known as the Almighty God
Himself who came down to Earth to dwell among men. This is a sharp contrast to both Moses and
Muhammad who are not considered to be gods who walked the Earth disguised as humans. Furthermore,
in comparison to Moses and Muhammad, Christ allegedly died for Eve's sin through which mankind was
damned.
Moses was a mere mortal whom God took as His elect, was an accomplished religious leader, and was a
triumphant king who led an exodus from the oppression of the Egyptians. Although such qualities makes
Jesus dissimilar to Moses, Muhammad's accomplishments and success in identical walks of life makes
him comparable to Moses. Indeed, the notable similarity between both figures is confirmed in the Quran:
"We have raised a prophet from among you [Ishmaelites], like the prophet We sent to Pharoah." (Quran
73:15)

1 "I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put my words in his
mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I command him." (Deut. 18:18)