Chapter on The Servant Who Enters an Act Intending God Alone
And two qualities in which the intention is obscure: desiring the joy of the believer, and desiring his benefit by what you teach him of knowledge. For the joy and benefit are only completed for him through knowledge. So knowledge obscures [the intention], because you want to make him happy so that he praises you for what you have brought him of joy, and he benefits and praises you and esteems you. When he sees a benefit in his religion that is something you taught him, he praises you when he attains obedience from what you taught him.
So because you desire his joy and his benefit, you are heedless and suppose that you desire God, Exalted and Glorious, by that, when in reality you desire that he praises you, sees you favorably, and esteems you.
I said: "So how does one achieve ikhlāṣ (sincerity) in this?"
He said: That you intend only to bring joy upon him so that you are rewarded for his joy — not so that he praises you — and you desire that he benefits by what you teach him so that he acts upon it, and you are rewarded for that, and you receive the like of his reward, not desiring that he extols you, nor that he esteems you, nor that he sees you favorably.
Chapter on the servant entering into an act desiring God, Exalted and Glorious, alone, then finding in himself an energy for increase
And what suffices him of intention regarding that.
I said: The servant enters into an act desiring God, Exalted and Glorious, by it, then finds in himself an energy for increase — but his heart becomes energized for the increase without a new intention arising, even an involuntary one — must he renew the intention regarding it?
its name is obedience, and likewise
He said: The first intention suffices him in that, so long as no passing thought of riyā' (ostentation) intervenes and he accepts it. And likewise with many of the deeds.
The servant intends to pray with a few verses in number, then appetite and vigor are opened up for him, so he stands and extends all of it. Or he intends to shorten, then increase in supplication during prostration is opened up for him, so he prolongs the prostration.
And likewise with the recitation of the Qur'an: he begins a surah intending no other, then the recitation of another becomes easy for him without a specific intention having been mentioned.
I said: I have understood this. If its name was obedience, what if its name was not obedience?
He said: As for what was not named obedience, if he began it for God, Mighty and Glorious, then the increase followed upon it, then he is upon what he began, so long as no riyā' (ostentation) occurred in his heart.
Like a man who intends God alone in helping some of the Muslims with his purchasing or his selling, or in a need he wants to assist him with some of that, intending God alone. Then he becomes energized and increases upon what he had intended, and so he is upon his first intention, so long as no ostentation intervenes, and he accepts it.
And likewise, he is asked about a need and he intends its fulfillment for God, Mighty and Glorious, alone. Then he desires to increase upon what he is asked, and he does that. And likewise, he intends a gift for God, Mighty and Glorious, then increases in it before he sends it. He is upon that intention.
And renewal is further from heedlessness, and stronger for the people of reward and hope, because afflictions may intervene in that. If he had intended God, Mighty and Glorious, with the first, like a gift that God, Mighty and Glorious, intends for someone whom he fears may regard it as little, and it is said: "He did not give enough," and he only increases on account of that.
And likewise with assistance in selling, purchasing, work, and fulfilling a need — he increases dirhams that may please them, out of hope of being esteemed in their sight, and he increases out of fear of being blamed, or it is said: "His soul was not generous enough."
until it becomes clear whether the assistance or the aid is not except by such-and-such, so that he may now distinguish from the work — whether it is a sale or a purchase. So renewal is preferable, as recompense for what preceded of his niyya (intention). And if he does not renew his intention, that sufficed as recompense for what preceded of his intention, so long as no passing thought of riyā' (ostentation) presents itself to him.
Chapter on Describing What Intention Is
I said: What is intention?
He said: It is the servant's resolve to act with a meaning from among meanings. When he intends to perform that action for the sake of that meaning, that resolve is an intention — either for God, exalted and majestic, or for other than Him, in accordance with the saying of the Prophet, peace be upon him:
"Actions are only according to what one intends."
For it comprises two meanings: an intention to perform the action, and an intention to perform it for a meaning from among meanings — whether of this world or the Hereafter.
Like a man who intends to act, or intends to go on a military expedition for the sake of reward, or with the opening takbīr, then he stands reciting, then bows, then prostrates, then rises.
And the intention for the reward of God, exalted and majestic, or for this world — is a resolve from him to pray in order to be rewarded and that God, exalted and majestic, be pleased with him, or a resolve that he be praised and given [gifts]. So that intention:
As for the intention in the action for God, exalted and majestic: it is that he intends by it the reward of God, exalted and majestic, desiring nothing else.
One of them in: that you have intended to be sincere (ikhlāṣ), and that you desire nothing of what you do except for God alone.
and «God Almighty does not disobey» and «that you become patient» and so you pray when it is time to pray, and you intend that every sin you have renounced, which was prompted by fear of God, Almighty and Glorious, then that intention for every act is a niyya (intention) of God, Almighty and Glorious.
And for ikhlās (sincerity): you love to be fasting, and your intention is to break the fast, and you love to be praying, and you abandon sins out of laziness toward them, or preferring preoccupation with worldly matters, and the soul does not soften through tawba (repentance) out of fear of God, Almighty and Glorious — then that intention is a love of the thing from you.
He said: And the irāda (will/intention) that is close [to the sense of "almost"] — the Arabs have used it in their language in three ways, and the Book was revealed with it: «a wall about to collapse» — God, exalted be His mention. [Al-Kahf 18:77]
And the poet said:
Do not wonder at my blackness,
and at a shirt that is about to fall apart.
And another said:
The spear intends the chests of the Banū Nizār,
and desires the blood of the Banū ʿAqīl.
So God, Almighty and Glorious, described the wall with irāda (will/intention), and the poet described the shirt with it. That is because it was a leaning wall that was about to collapse. And the shirt was worn out, about to be torn apart by its wear.
And you say: "You wanted to destroy yourself" — meaning "you almost destroyed yourself." That is, she did not intend her own destruction, nor did she love her own destruction.
I said: Does the intention present itself and is it possible for the servant in every matter and in every situation?
He said: As for the intention, in what has no reward it does not present itself, and there is no intention in that. And whoever intends God —
…extravagance in that, may He be glorified and exalted.
He claimed that it is like the man who builds lavish buildings and eats fine foods — intending thereby God — and undertakes them despite no weakness in what he finds in it, and there is no strength for obedience except upon that obedience, for niyya (intention) cannot be attained in that except through splendor.
And likewise regarding what is forbidden — he claimed — one who gazes at a woman: niyya (intention) cannot be attained through gazing at her in that.
I said: What then is the meaning of the statement of one among the seekers who said, "Intention does not come to me"? He said: That may mean that he is silent when asked about a need, or he claims that there is no [damaged] for him in it, so that each time he is lazy regarding the reward therein, or regarding fulfilling the need, so he does not desire it and manifests blame upon himself.
Like wealth that he withholds, or his self does not submit to expending it for God's sake, or he is lazy regarding the prayer, or regarding undertaking a need lest it trouble him, or his self does not submit to abandoning food and drink and bearing hunger and thirst for fasting. So he says: "Intention does not come to me" — meaning: my self does not submit to leaving my appetites.
"my food, and I bear hunger and thirst" — that is a sound meaning.
The other meaning is: that his soul (nafs) may have become generous toward God by expending his wealth in the path of goodness, or he may have become vigorous for God in prayer such that he finds no laziness overtaking him. Likewise, his soul becomes generous by abandoning food and drink for fasting, but then passing thoughts (khawatir) arise calling him toward ostentation (riya'), and he says: "I have no intention." He means that he should reject the passing thought. And that his heart, after something has occurred to it, should be as it was before the passing thought occurred to him — free of inner struggle, the passing thoughts having already subsided from him.
That is an error and a weakness, because the servants were commanded and urged toward acts of obedience, and to negate ostentation by rejecting it in their hearts — not that they were commanded to abandon obedience on account of the promptings of ostentation.
Were one to do that, it would be likely that Satan would assail him at every act with passing thoughts of ostentation, and he would abandon every act of obedience.
And people were not commanded to expel the whisperings of Iblis from arising in their breasts, since God — exalted and glorified — has granted him that authority, nor to change their natural dispositions and temperaments until they reach a point where [the soul] is not drawn to any meaning from the adornments of this world — neither ostentation nor anything else — such that their temperaments become ones in which praise is detestable and blame is beloved.
Rather, they were commanded that in their religious practice they stand firm with what God — exalted and glorified — has entrusted to them of general knowledge.
As for what pertains to [their] natural constitution, they were not charged with that nor are they capable of it. However, the servant may grow strong, and the promptings of the soul toward ostentation subside in some of what he does, while ostentation arises in some of what he does — occurring feebly — except that praise and blame are not equal in the soul's temperament.
So the servants were commanded to struggle against their desires (mujahadat ahwa'ihim), not that they were commanded that there be no instinctive drive in the soul [at all].
nor that the whisperings of Satan (waswās) should emerge so as to intrude upon their hearts, nor that they should be called to any desire. He made them possessors of innate dispositions (gharā'iz) [by which they stand].
He bestowed upon them knowledge (ma'rifa) and learning, and they stand firm in their station, and they were tested by their innate dispositions, and He made Satan an agitator of those dispositions through reminding them of what they love.
With what God, Exalted and Glorified, entrusted to them of knowledge and learning, they were commanded to struggle against whatever stirred from the promptings of their innate dispositions, and against the prodding of Satan and his embellishment for the soul of what accords with its innate disposition. The servants shall not be occupied with anything other than that, and they are not capable of anything but it — except that some of them are stronger in that than others. They are those who persisted in striving (mujāhada) until the soul broke away from the call [of desire], without a change of nature.
The soul may be prompted by thoughts that used to occur to it before, but with a weakened urgency compared to what it was at the very beginning of their [spiritual] start.
The servant's duty is to strive and forbid his soul from its whims, but he is not charged with changing his nature so that it transforms and becomes like the nature of the angels. Rather, the prohibition is from what nature calls to.
It is related from Wahb that he said: "Faith is the guide, action is the driver, and the soul (nafs) is obstinate. If its guide slackens, it swerves from the path; and if its driver flees, it bucks against its guide. But when the guide and the driver are upright, the soul proceeds — whether willingly or unwillingly."
And [he said]: "If whenever you disliked something in your soul you abandoned it, you would be on the verge of abandoning your entire religion."
And he said: "The soul awaits caprice, and caprice awaits the people of intellect. If the intellect restrains it, it is restrained; but if it gives it free rein, it is destroyed."
because the intellect, when it does not see by knowledge and does not fortify itself with maʿrifa (spiritual knowledge), inclines toward what hawā (caprice) calls it to" — and he spoke truly.
And so it was the nafs (soul) that, driven by its caprices, contrived stratagems against snares, and flattered its appetites and its desires. But when it reflected, and saw clearly by knowledge, and fortified itself with maʿrifa, it recognized the harm of what hawā calls to, and when it perceived the consequence of that harm, its rebuke restrained the nafs from its ascendancy.
God, exalted and majestic, created the animals — from the inhabitants of the heavens and the earths — upon diverse natures.
He fashioned the angels upon intellects and inner insights, and stripped them of inclinations, appetites, and preoccupation with the hardships that other living creatures are burdened with. Thus caprices do not assail them, nor do appetites contend within them.
They are therefore tireless in obedience to God, exalted, and in His remembrance, never flagging — since He did not place in them the opposites by which others flag: the caprices and appetites that (obstruct reflection) and cause one to prefer this world over acts of obedience and remembrance.
So what would make Him assign them the reward of the bliss of Paradise, when they neither struggled against caprices nor bore pain, fatigue, and toil, and they were spared punishment, and they were never remiss in their obedience?
He fashioned the cattle, the birds, and the beasts upon appetites, and placed in them knowledge to the extent that they feed, seek their livelihoods, and guard themselves and their offspring against what they recognize of harm. But He did not grant them intellects that comprehend command, prohibition, knowledge of consequences. He therefore lifted punishment from them in all that befalls them of the appetites that He forbade to jinn and humankind.
He lifted punishment from them and did not hold them accountable for what they obtained of mating, nor for what they took of people's wealth and their blood, and (He granted them safety from punishment), and He made the final end of their destiny that He would turn them to dust.
And God created the jinn and humankind upon the intellects that bear command and prohibition and know the lofty — except those from whom God, Exalted and Glorious, has removed the intellect, such as the insane and the like. And that is «when they reach maturity» [TN: cf. al-Ahqaf 46:15 or similar]. That they should strive with what He has given them of intellects against what the soul calls them to by way of its instinct. So He made them [subject to] the greatest reward and the painful punishment.
So reflect: how were you created and what were you commanded? It is not revealed to you that you were charged to change your nature until it becomes like the nature of the angels, such that you abandon obedience in expectation that your nature would turn to something other than what it was built upon from creation, and that the enemy would fall silent and his dominion over whispering would cease. For that would be obedience — as you have claimed — out of sincerity to your Lord, Exalted and Glorious. So you would not be sincere, and you would abandon work for the sake of ikhlas (sincerity). But rather, you have abandoned sincere work so that its reward would be yours.
The one who says: "The intention does not come to me" — meaning, "I want to obey God, Exalted and Glorious, but I fear that no work of mine will be sincere without something occurring to my qalb (heart)" — that is weakness and error.
As for the one who said it out of laziness, miserliness, lack of desire, and lack of the soul's generosity in obedience to God, Exalted and Glorious — it is because he dislikes the reward of God, Exalted and Glorious, in this world and the Hereafter, until he becomes discontented. So when he is discontented, let him intend God, Exalted and Glorious, thereby, and let him negate everything that occurs in his heart of passing thoughts of riya' (ostentation) and the like.