Ten Steps to Allah. Step 2: Sincere Intentions
As we get closer to Ramadan, focusing on what we are seeking through our devotions is ever more crucial. The ultimate aim of any Muslim is to gain the closeness of Allah Most High. Shaykh Faraz Rabbani gives us clear guidelines with 10 key steps on the path to Allah Most High elucidating for us how to get closer to Allah.
Life is a test of our choices. In the second step, Shaykh Faraz discusses the importance of making purposeful choices through sincerity of intention for Allah.
Step 2: Sincere Intentions
Sincerity of intention arises by making choices for Allah. We do not make whimsical choices or choices based on desire alone. Rather, the believer is one who strives to make choices for the sake of Allah.
Allah Most High tells us in the Qur’an, “They have not been commanded except that they be devoted to Allah making their life-choices for the sake of Allah alone, in uprightness.” [Qur’an, 98:5]
The second step after leaving whim is making purposeful choices through intention in worship, in work, in all your relationships, in your worldly choices, and in the pleasures of life. It begins with your ritual acts of devotion but then extends to all other areas of life. If you can make all your choices enveloped by a sense of devotion to Allah and sincerity for His sake and with uprightness then you have fulfilled the framework for living a purposeful life.
In acts of worship, don’t make your focus to worship alone; rather, seek Allah through your worship. Similarly, in your work, see that your work is an act of devotion and do it seeking the pleasure of Allah. Your social relationships are not about your wife, your husband, your parents, or your children. They are about being devoted to Allah. For all your life choices, seek to do things in a manner pleasing to Allah, seeking the pleasure of Allah thereby.
Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “How strange is the affair of the believer, everything is for their good.”
We ask Allah Most High to grant us this meaning of cultivating sincerity through purposeful choices.
The episode can be found on this link Ramadan 2020 Reminders | Episode 21: Ten Steps to Allah – 02 – Sincere Intentions | Sh Faraz Rabbani – YouTube
About the Author
Shaykh Faraz Rabbani spent ten years studying with some of the leading scholars of recent times, first in Damascus, and then in Amman, Jordan. His teachers include the foremost theologian of recent times in Damascus, the late Shaykh Adib al-Kallas (may Allah have mercy on him), as well as his student Shaykh Hassan al-Hindi, one of the leading Hanafi fuqaha of the present age.
He returned to Canada in 2007, where he founded SeekersGuidance in order to meet the urgent need to spread Islamic knowledge–both online and on the ground–in a reliable, relevant, inspiring, and accessible manner. He is the author of Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation According to the Hanafi School (White Thread Press, 2004.) Since 2011, Shaykh Faraz has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center.
