 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen wa sallallahu wa sallam wa barak ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam ajma'in. Allahumma fattah alina fattuh al-arifin wa fiqna tawfiq al-salihin ya arham ar-rahimin. Wa sallallahu wa sallam wa barak ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Alhamdulillahi. Hope everybody is well, so we're going to continue this series, insha'Allah, and today we are going to be talking about another trait of the righteous. And the trait we're going to be focusing on today is the importance of making pure, sincere, and righteous intentions that the people who are close to Allah, the people, the righteous folks, they make a lot of intentions. And not only do they make a lot of intentions, but they're taught from a young age to make significantly sincere intentions for every action it is that they do. And why is that? It is because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that actions are by their intention. So you will get according to what you intend. And so if you don't intend anything, you might just get the bare minimum. But if you make a significant amount of intentions, then you are going to be able to access a lot. And also it is mentioned that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said that the intention of the believer is greater than the action of the believer. And that is because you and me can accomplish through our intention, but we can't accomplish through our action. But Allah will reward people, insha'Allah, on the Day of Judgment, and they will be admitted into Jannah, many of them, because of all these rewards through Allah's mercy, of course, because of all these rewards that they had from the intentions that they made, the sincere intentions that they made, even if they were not able to act on those intentions, or even if they were not able to fulfill those intentions. And so it is mentioned that the people of the past, the salaf, the righteous predecessors, that's what the term salaf means, it means the righteous predecessors, they would teach their kids to make intention just like they would teach their kids the Fatiha. So we all know how important the Surah al-Fatiha is, that for those who have kids or younger siblings, or, you know, young, but even preceding learning all of the Qur'an, the importance of learning Surah al-Fatiha is very much at the top of the list because it is the opening Surah, not only of Allah's book, but also the main Surah in which one begins and initiates, of course, after the Thanat, the one begins with the rest of the prayer. And just like we teach our kids the Fatiha, and you sit down with them and you review and you say, okay, learn this word, and alif, and lam, and ha, and meem, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen, right, you work through that process for teaching yourself, teaching your children, teaching your siblings, whoever it is, that the righteous people, they would sit and teach their families intentions in very much the same way. And so what, what does that mean? Why is this so important, right? Sometimes you might think, oh, well, intention is simple. Like I'm going to pray because God told me to pray, or I'm eating because I'm hungry, or I'm giving charity because somebody needs help. That, that, that is very much a part of it. But there's also a lot of hidden meanings within intention. So for example, let's say somebody intends to give charity. And their intention is that I want to give charity to help all of the people who receive this charity, and then all of the people who are able to help others because of the sustenance that they receive through this charity. For example, they make multiple types of, multiple layers of intentions, right? That is one level at one, at which one can operate. But somebody else might give charity, let's say someone's at a fundraiser or something like that. And they might give charity, right? Somebody asks, oh, is anybody going to give, you know, at these fundraisers, who wants to give $5,000 or $10,000? And somebody else might raise their hand. But their intention could be very different than the intention of the person who came before them. And their intention could be, I want to give this much money. So everybody on my table and all the people in the surrounding vicinity and all the people here, they hear about this and they say, wow, mashallah, look at that guy, look at that girl, look at that woman, look at that man. He gave so much money, they gave so much money. Look at that. And that might have been their intention. Now the action is what? It is by the intention. So one will get the reward from Allah, the former person will get the reward because they wanted to please Allah. And they could have even given just $10, but they could have given sincere, sincerely given $10, and they will get significant reward, inshaAllah, with Allah because they gave money in order to please their Lord, in order to help other human beings. And the second person could have given $10,000,000. And they did it so that everybody around them could say, look at you, you're great, praise them, post about them. They spread the word, spread that information, maybe it increases them and followers, whatever it is. And that's their reward. That is the reward that they get because they wanted the reward of human beings and you'll get the praise. People on the car ride home will praise you. And then that's it. That's your reward versus the other person. Their reward is with Allah and they'll see the benefit of it in this life actually and in the next life. And so intentions are so important. That's one minor intention, right? But you could say another example of this. You could say something nice to somebody, for example. And one person could really, sincerely mean it, like really trying to compliment somebody and say, you know, I really appreciate what you did for me that day. And somebody else, they just want to get something from them. They say, oh, this person, he has a lot of money or he has a lot of fame or he can help me get this job. Let me praise him a little bit. Let me sweeten him up. Let me sweeten him up. Let me, you know, figure out a way to make him feel good, even though I don't like him at all. But let me just praise him a little bit, right? Fake it so that I can get him to get that job for me or get something from him or so that I can get some benefit from him. Maybe he's a powerful person, influential person. You'll see people do this all the time. I can guarantee you that very few of the people who are around Donald Trump actually have any respect for him or actually believe that he is a viable leader or is a man of character. I just doubt that, right? But a lot of people will go to deep extent to, and they switch their positions before he was running or before he became president. They were, you know, saying this about him and that about him and saying that he's not a viable leader, that, you know, he lies and this and that. But afterwards, once he got in a position of power, oh, they praise him. What can we do for you? You know, he's great. He's right, and they don't criticize. They won't speak truth to power. They won't be able to actually articulate what they really believe deep down inside. Why? Because your intention, if it's impure, if you're a puppet of power and you just want power and you just want fame and you just want to be the boss, you will do anything it is that you need in order to get that power. The Muslim, though we are not people, the ends do not justify the means for us. Meaning that you don't lie. You don't compromise your morals. You don't say something you don't believe in order. So, oh, if I could do this, I'll become the president. I'll become the secretary of state or I'll become in this position of power and then I'll help everybody. But I got to lie a little bit. I got to cheat a little bit. I got to, you know, accept this bribe. I got to do this for this person. You know, it's just part of the game. We don't, we don't believe in all that, right? Because our intention is so important and the intention guides the action. So if the intention is sincere from the beginning, the action will be sincere at this step and at this step and at this step. And the minute the believer notices, hold up, something's wrong here. They knew their intention was sincere and they won't engage in that action anymore. They'll say, I'm not about this. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to cheat. I'm not going to steal. I'm not going to fornicate. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that because that's not what I'm about. But for somebody whose intention was wrong, they won't care. Their intention was to get power anyways. It won't matter, right? So those are some examples of why intentions become so important. Now, if you are true in your intention, if I'm true in my intention, the rest becomes very, very clear. So the Prophet ﷺ, he mentioned people who that they fight for, they fight in the way of Allah in a valid justified jihad, justified battle where somebody is attacking the religion. They fight for the sake of Allah and they have the reward of a martyr. The Quran mentions many times the reward of the shohadah, the reward of the martyrs. But somebody else equally could look just as valiant and brave on the battlefield, but they could have been fighting for, again, so other people could say, look at how courageous he was. Look at how tough he was. Look at what he did in that move. Look at what he did there. And the reward is very, very different. One person was sincere for Allah. The other person wasn't. Only Allah, of course, ultimately knows. You and I, it's not our job to read the hearts of people, but the intention is where the reward comes out, right? There are other people and there's a lengthy hadith for the Prophet ﷺ, he mentions that there will be people who learn the Quran, they learn and memorize Allah's book. Some of them, in order to actually sincerely memorize Allah's book and become hafiz of the Quran, others will become hafiz just so people could praise them and people could say, wow, you know Allah's book. Look at you and they love when they get the praise and it makes them feel good and all of this. And the intention is corrupt. The intention is wrong. Or maybe the child's intention is sincere, but the parent who was helping them become that, maybe their intention was wrong, right? And the intention is what guides the action. And so we have to know when we feel insincere, when we feel like something's off, we have to go back and check. Was my intention correct? Because the righteous, they would make intentions, then they would rectify, they would examine their intentions, and then they would rectify their intentions. Why did I really do that? Was I really being sincere? Okay, now I feel like some percentage of that was insincere. Maybe I was being a little bit hypocritical there. I'm going to fix that next time. I'm not going to allow myself to feel that next time, right? And then you don't stop acting. It's not like you stop doing virtuous deeds because the intention isn't always 100% pure. It's a continuous effort, but to know that the rectification has to become, has to be there eventually. And the hadith also mentions the person, and these are the people who if they had the wrong intention and they didn't do it for the sake of Allah, Allah throws them into the fire. They're among the first people who will be thrown into the fire. One of them will be the scholar who learned. So he or she could be called learned and not learning. And so Allah will ask them on the day of judgment. You learned and they'll say, Yes, I learned the religion, the Quran, the Sunnah, the Prophet's asalam, the hadith, etc, etc for you. Oh Allah, Allah says you lie. You learned so you could be called a learned man or a learned woman. And you receive that reward. They call that to you and then he or she is thrown into the fire. Because what? The intention was incorrect. They may have the same outcome. They may have the same outward level of knowledge. They may have the same degrees, whatever it is. But one's intention was pure. The other person's intention was not pure. And so intentions really help us understand if we are being sincere. And it's very, very, very important. So let's talk a little bit of the types of intentions that one can have. So the first type of intention, Imam al-Ghazali, he has a whole book on this. It's called The Book on Intentions, Sincerity and Truthfulness. The book on Niyah, Ikhlas and Siddh, all three of which are tied together. It begins with the righteous intention, a sincere intention. Then one becomes fully sincere in their actions, what's called muhlis. Purely sincere, completely sincere, oriented towards one. Surat al-Ikhlas, Surat al-Ikhlas. Allah is also known as the chapter of purity or the chapter of sincerity. And of course the chapter of the oneness of Allah because they're related. The one who is pure, the one who is sincere is the one who is focused completely inwardly, outwardly. Every single thought, focus is on Allah. And Allah is the one and they're the one who they are focused and Allah is the one who they are focused on. And so the ikhlas, the purity relates to the oneness and relates to the intention. And so he mentions in this book different types of intentions one can have. So the first is, Imam al-Ghazali basically says your reward is according to how pure and impure your intention was. So you can have one type of intention that is completely pure. You can have what's called the mixed intention, a little bit more good than bad. You can have an intention that's half bad, half good. And you can have an intention that's, you know, a little bit more bad and a little less good. And then you can have intention that's just completely rotten, just only for the sake of people, right? And so we have to think, okay, when I do a certain action, right, what is my intention? Am I being pure and sincere for the sake of Allah? Is this sincerity clear? And we know deep down inside, right? The intention is something that we know. We know what our intentions are, right? And we are taught to make intentions to pray, to make intentions to fast. But think about intentions beyond that. What other things do you and I intend? And do we intend them for the sake of Allah? In the social media culture that we live in, when so many of us do things for other people, when so many of us, it's so easy to do things for the sake of showing off or for the sake of getting likes or for the sake of creating, getting a few people to praise us or increasing our followers or whatever outcome we desire, the purity of one's intention can become corrupted. And that's very, very important to examine in this time that this religion, at the very least, do your best that actions in relation to the root, to your Dean, don't ever talk about them or post them or spread them in the sense that spread what good you have done until you become somebody who's worked enough on yourself that the purity is very clearly established. And then if somebody thinks that about themselves, they are not going to be sincere anyways because a sincere person wouldn't think about that themselves, so they wouldn't really ever get to that stage. But the point I'm trying to make is don't let ourselves get engaged in this social media sharing of what we do religiously because it can corrupt the intention very much. You could make the intention for Allah but later down the line your intent, your deed gets corrupted, why? Because you just posted about it and you wanted a bunch of people to know about it, you wanted a bunch of people to follow you and become famous and whatever it is. Try to be sincere and keep some things just between you and God. Now for dunya things, starting a business, they're starting an organization, this, this and that, okay, there's room for all of that. But you're not necessarily, and inshallah we can be sincere in trying to do our work even for the sake of Allah. That should be one of our focuses. But in those types of things, okay, maybe one gets some followers or some praise or whatever, but don't let that come seep into your religion or it will significantly harm one. And it could be the main reason why we're prevented from increasing spiritually because every time we succeed in something spiritually, we feel the need to tell everybody. And when we tell everybody, some people are in, we might be insincere because we might have done it for the sake of other people. And so I just wanted to read a hadith here. And then we're going to go on to talk about intentions and what the actions are related to. Now this is, this, this is a very impactful hadith. When I read it, it really shook me. But it should not be taken in the sense that it shouldn't discourage us, right, that we should realize Allah is all merciful and He's all forgiving. But it should inspire us to work hard. The righteous are people who always want to work harder on themselves and who aren't just content with themselves. And again, we're juxtaposing this against the time that we live in, which is filled with people who have bad character and who are vile, right? And we are, we, we ourselves have so much of that to work on. And so in the time that we live in very few times, you have introspection of what did I do wrong? Maybe why did I get this, right? Even in the case where the president got the coronavirus, right? Where's the introspection? Why did I get this? What wrong did I do? What kind of punishment could this be? No, it's just completely that doesn't cross one's mind because the orientation is not correct. So in this hadith, he says the Messenger of Allah SAW has said that Allah created seven angels before creating the heavens. And then He created the heavens and He appointed each angel, one angel to a heaven and made them the gatekeeper of that heaven. Now, when the angels of the earth who record the deeds of mankind, of us, they transmit the deeds performed by each one of our servants, each one of Allah's servants, rather, from morning until evening. And so the first transmission, it goes where? Of course, to the first heaven. And so the angels of the first heaven, they greatly praise the acts of devotion that they hear that, oh, so and so, you know, did so many good deeds and they praise their acts of devotion, how much worship they've performed. And the light of those deeds is as powerful as the light of the sun, such that the angels received it and they're kind of in a state of awe. Look at the great deeds that they had. But now this angel who's the gatekeeper, he says, throw this devotion back in this person's face, for I am the gatekeeper and the watchman of the backbiter's. And Allah has commanded me not to allow the deeds of anyone who is who engages in backbiting to pass. And so that's, it gets thrown back the first level, right? This is an example of if we're doing a lot of sin, we have to remember that that could impact the good deeds that we do. And so we need to actively be working on both. Don't think that you can mix, that one can, you know, be backbiting and gossiping and whatnot all of the time and expect that to not impact the good that one does. Of course, there will be an impact, doesn't mean we stop doing the good, but we have to work on the bad that we do. So then the next deed comes. And now this person didn't speak ill of others. And it's brought up and it reaches the second heaven. But this angel says, throw the deed back in his or her face, for he did it for the dunya. And in order to have command over people in public assemblies and basically in order for the sake of having power and control over other people, I have been commanded to prevent the entry of any deeds performed for the dunya and for self-glorification, right? So you should, our deeds should be focused on glorifying Allah, not glorifying our own nafs and glorifying our own self. So that deed gets thrown back, right? It doesn't reach Allah. Then the third deed comes and it is brought there and it has charity in it and fasting in it and a lot of salah and other good, good deeds. And the angels are amazed at the luminosity and the astonishment. They're astonished by how wondrous this deed is. And the angel now comes and this is the angel of the third heaven. And this person didn't backbite and didn't do it for the sake of the dunya. And this angel says, I am appointed over pride and I interdict the deeds of the proud. This person behaved arrogantly with the people, throw this deed back. So it goes back again because of a trait of arrogance. Just this hadith alone proves to us the importance of working on traits and importance of working on purifying the heart because it does have a very real impact on our deeds. Then another deed is brought up, passing up to the fourth heaven. It clears the third. And the angel says, I am the angel appointed over conceit and vanity. This deed is not free of vanity. It shall not permit to be passed by me. What is vanity? This is being impressed with yourself. So arrogance, it takes two people. Like you got to be proud. Somebody sees you performing some worship and you got to be like, yeah, look at me. Vanity just takes the mirror, like the narcissist who's so impressed with themselves. Just look at me. Oh my God, I did so much worship, so much this. I give so much money. I'm such a boss. This whole culture of people praising themselves, you see rappers and people on social media like, I'm a boss and I'm this and that. You're just full of it. You're completely full of it because this person of Allah they don't think they're a boss. They don't think anything. They think that they have a lot of work to do and they're humbling themselves. So that is an example of conceit in the time that we live in. Then the deed, if somebody else comes and this person didn't backbite or, you know, in this situation, they are not conceited. They're not proud. They didn't do it for the world. And the beauty of this deed is just amazing. It's such an amazing deed. As I mentioned, it's like the beauty of two people getting married. And the angel says, take this deed and throw it back in the face and place it upon the neck of the person who did it. For I am the angel appointed over envy and this person would envy everybody whose accomplishment and knowledge had reached their level. And what we hear in Hadith where the Prophet says that envy burn your deeds like fire burns wood. Right? O kamakal, the paraphrasing here, the Prophet said something along those lines, right? That envy will burn your deeds. This is an example that somebody who gets their deeds up. But because of envy, they envied somebody and everybody who had accomplished as much as them, they would get envious of them and wish that they didn't have that success. The deed is thrown back. So then another deed is brought and it's pure and it reaches the sixth heaven. And the angel says, throw this deed back into their face for if he did not show mercy upon anyone who had been affected or made sorrow for, rather he would rejoice. I am the angel of mercy. I have been commanded to stop the deeds of the unmerciful. This is an example for us to care. Look at how high Allah ranked. After all these things which relate mainly to ourselves, how Allah ranked, the importance of being merciful to humanity and merciful to Allah's creation, merciful to other people. You and I should care about other human beings and because otherwise the deed was stopped there. Then another deed is brought up. It's light is as brilliant as the sun. It's noise falls upon the heavens like a peel of thunder. So great it is. No angel would be able to stop this deed. When it reaches the seventh heaven, the angel who is the guardian of the seventh heaven, he says throw this deed back into his face and put a lock upon their soul for he or she did not seek Allah most high with this deed. Rather their purpose was to receive glory among the learned in the fame and that is hypocrisy and Allah does not accept the hypocrite. And then finally another deed is brought up and it passes the seventh heaven. And in it there is good character, vicar, remembrance of Allah, many other beautiful acts of worship and the angels of all the angels of the heavens go with the act of worship to the presence of Allah and testify that the deed is pure and sincere as it cleared seven different levels. And Allah says you are the guardians of knowledge and deeds. I am the guardians of his soul. He or she they did not do this deed for my sake. There was another intention in their heart. My curse is upon them. The angels say your curse and our curse too. And the heavens and all that are in them say may they be cursed. This is the end of the tradition that Imam Ghazali quotes this hadith. It's a very very interesting hadith, right? So first of all, again it's kind of intense and I know it's a little bit long, so sorry about the length. But we see here the levels but look at the level at which intention and sincerity was. It was literally after one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and then you reach the level of intention, which was at the level of like after seven where Allah now is examining the deed. And if the deed is not done for the sake of Allah, Allah does not accept that deed according to this hadith. And we hope again Allah will be merciful for us and overlook our faults and all the deeds that we've done that are wrong. But this goes back to just the importance of intention because the one who does not have a sincere intention, who does things for the wrong reason, hypocrisy, they become a hypocrite and hypocrisy enters into their hearts. So that's an example of why intention becomes so important. So now let's talk a little bit about the types of actions that intentions relate to. So first of all, let's start with sins. So you can't have a good intention with sins. This should be clear. Anything haram is haram. So for example, if somebody like let's say you want to, I don't know, and you want to enter into a relationship, somebody wants to like, you know, they're dating somebody and they say, Oh, if I date somebody, I've heard this before, right? If I date, if I date a Muslim, I date this person. My intention is to date them to give them dawah to bring them closer to Islam so I can show them a little bit about Islam. But I won't be able to do that if I'm not close to them. If I don't, you know, and I'm kind of feeling like all these feelings for them. And so if I just, you know, get into this relationship and we date for a bit, then that's my intention, right? That's just, it's called waswasa of shaitan, right? Or somebody who thinks that something that is clearly haram, like remember with regards to what's allowed, what's not allowed, it's all good if it's not all good, but it's okay. We have to work on it. So but if we do something we know it's wrong. We know, you know, we don't have any, we're just doing our best, right? We're going to make a mistake. We're going to make Toba. We're going to turn to repentance, turn in repentance to Allah. That's our goal. That, that's one part of it. And the told journey Allah created mankind to forget, to sin, to make mistakes and to turn back to Him. But what's risky is when somebody tries to like think that they can play a trick on God and like, no, no, no, I'm going to do this sin, but it's actually not a sin because my heart is pure. I'm doing this for the right reason, right? I don't believe that it could be a sin. I don't believe that like, let's say Allah has doesn't like when, you know, we wear certain types of clothing. I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's really about what's in the heart. Well, no, not that it is about what's in the heart, but it's all it's what's in the heart shows on the outside, right? And so that person would be getting tricked completely by the devil in that situation, right? Or another, you know, you could extrapolate that example out. So I've heard, you know, many types of situations though, I'm going to, if I smoke when I smoke weed, I get really, you know, spiritual and then I can really connect to Allah and that's, that's, that's my intention when I'm smoking and it calms me down. Usually I'm an angry person, but when I, when I'm high, I calm down and I'm less angry. And so Allah likes it when I'm not angry. So that's why I'm going to smoke. Hey, these are just tricks. Shaitan will play out, but I'm sure people, we've heard these arguments, these arguments come about and it's, it's there, they're just tricks. Shaitan will try to make you think an intention can fix a sin. So that's the first level sins, intentions have no impact there. You cannot have a good intention for a sin. The intention will not have an impact on the sin. The sin, the wrong is a wrong and we rectify the wrong by making toba and by trying to stop doing it. But we will not advance spiritually if we think that the sins we are doing number one, if we think that they're not sins, that's just ignorance. And number two, if we think our intention is righteous and pure for those sins and we don't actually work on ourselves and many of us, we are blocked spiritually because just basic things we choose to ignore simply because our mind can't grasp things and we don't want to listen to what the rules have to say. Look, the rules are tough, that's true and this deen is much more than the rules, but the rules are there so we can get the love of God and we can achieve states of serenity and happiness. So all we got to do is do our best to follow them and seek forgiveness for when we can, so that we can achieve the end goal. Don't worship the rules, but the rules have to be followed in order to achieve the end aim and the end goal. So then the next thing comes to good deeds. Okay, so good deeds, there's like the deed in of itself has a reward and then the intention one does or makes, multiplies the reward significantly, significantly if one makes a lot of intentions. So you could be, let's say somebody is reciting the Qur'an, right? One can make the intention first to have a conversation with Allah because these are the uncreated words of Allah, the uncreated speech of Allah. Then one could be creating the intention to recite the Qur'an with their mouth and to get reward for that and to hear the words of Allah with their ears and to get reward for that and then to see the Qur'an in Arabic and to get reward for seeing the light of the Arabic Qur'an and then the next intention is to to profit those who listen to you, who might somebody might walk by and they might hear you reciting and so you want to benefit them because anybody who hears Allah's speech gets a reward and then you want to make the intention to extract knowledge, whatever knowledge Allah has poured forth and so much knowledge is in that book, extract the knowledge and then one can make the ultimate intention, I intend in this act everything that the Prophet ﷺ intends, intended or intends in this action, right? And that is like the cheat code intention we can make in order to shoot up to the top because whatever the Prophet ﷺ intended, obviously the best intention but it's a good practice to articulate all of these intentions out. So that's an example with good deeds. So we should do that with good deeds, right? Make an intention, multiple intentions, that's what the righteous do and now don't think these things are in the unseen but when you make an intention a door opens and then a door opens and then a door opens, those doors are doors of light and doors of closeness and nearness to Allah that you will get because of the intentions that you make. Shaytan, he doesn't want you and I to be mindful, he wants us to be hasty, he wants us to do things quickly, take a step back before we do something, collect ourselves and make intentions and that allows the mindfulness where people will speak a lot about mindfulness in these days, that allows the mindfulness to enter into a situation. And that's just one example, you can take that example for other things. One of the best places to make intentions is in just permissible deeds. So naturally in sin there's nothing in good deeds, of course there's a lot of ways but you can actually make a permissible deed like just a random thing like eating food into a good deed by making a righteous intention. An example, I'm going to eat this food in order to have energy to worship Allah and I'm going to eat healthy in order to have a long life in the obedience of Allah and I'm going to eat this food so that I can be grateful to Allah because Allah has has given me food and then I'm going to express thanks to him and I'm going to eat this food in order to intend everything and I'm going to eat this food and I intend everything that the Prophet ﷺ and that the Sahaba intended while they were eating. Right, that's just an example, I'm going to eat this food so that tomorrow I can have energy to go to work and to earn a halal living for my family. Example right there, just so many eating food turns into worship. Okay, I am going to let's say you want to hang out with your family. I'm hanging out with my family in order to calm just have some relaxing moments so I can feel refreshed and then I can go back to doing the work that I need to do in order to get closer to Allah. I intend to hang out with my family because Allah said to enjoin family ties to bring family closer. I intend to be with my kids in order to nurture them and to teach them all of these types in order to just spend time with them to make them laugh because the Prophet ﷺ did that as well with his children and with his grandchildren as we know from the Seerah. Just a couple intentions and there's so many more one can do right. So practically there are people who literally will make so many intentions throughout the day right from everything of using the restroom all the way to eating to if they dress their dress I intend to dress in a way that will please Allah. I intend to cover myself and cover my oda because Allah is commanding me to cover my nakedness. I intend to dress modestly because the righteous people who are close to Allah dress modestly. I intend to wear clothing that Allah will be pleased with so that people will not make me the object of their intention attention but rather make the object of their attention inshallah that they will focus their attention rather on Allah and not on a human being. There's a couple examples right another one it's listed an example of like you want to wear some some some nice scent right I intend to follow the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. The sunnah by the way of scent is that for a man if you're it's a righteous sunnah to wear a scent that will kind of emanate and for a woman to not wear a scent that's overbearing because you don't want to attract attention to yourself especially from other men but rather you know a scent that's a little bit more calming and can only be smelled when somebody comes very very close to you so wearing a nice scent I intend to follow the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. I intend to increase your intellect because good smells actually increase one's intellect. I intend to be respectful of the people around me. I intend to make people feel happy but so they could buy when they smell something nice. I intend to prevent other people from smelling bad smells. I intend to prevent people from speaking ill of me in case I'd smelled bad and they had left the gathering and then spoken ill of me. There's just a couple of small things we could make right but it just takes a little bit of mindfulness in the deeds that we do a little bit of mindfulness and it goes a long way and the doors of khayr and the doors of good then inshallah will open. The process to make the intention is the following you first you sit down and make a list and then make the intentions then we see how it goes when we implement the action we examine the intentions then we go about reflect rectifying the intention if we did something and intended something incorrectly and then finally we improve the intention so it's this process we mentioned at the beginning of this classes it's all about iteration all about improving inshallah la ilaha illallah so we're almost done here the intentions are influenced by the orientation of your soul and your heart the more pure the soul is the more pure the intention will be and the more corrupt the soul is the less pure it will be but again the process the pure intention will then work on purifying the soul it's actually amazing and so think about what your intention is for is it because you love Allah or you fear the fire or you are intending to seek paradise right or are you intending it just so someone can watch you and praise you are you intending it to get followers and likes what is the intention for the action that we have and remember the intention is extremely powerful it is greater than the action according to haditha the prophecy is on and why is this it is because of the heart and the deeds of the heart they're very very powerful they're worth more than the deeds of the limbs just like the station an example of this the station of trusting in Allah if somebody truly trusts in Allah this is an unseen matter that happens at the heart level you can't really necessarily see it physically manifest that somebody's struggling with something and they're trusting in their Lord that he is going to take care of me in this difficulty in this sickness in this problem in this adversity that i'm going through they trust in Allah the other person somebody else excuse me might not be at that station they might not trust in Allah yet they might be working on that they might get agitated they might get you know anxious all the time trust isn't necessarily there that deed you can't see but that deed of trusting in Allah is worth so much in Allah's sight inshaAllah it's worth so much in Allah's sight because it is an action of the heart and action that brings repose to the heart similarly the intentions are the actions of the heart you could be sitting here right now make intention that if Allah gave you the ability you would feed all of the people who are hungry on this planet and that you are concerned about poverty you're concerned about hunger you're concerned about the problem of global poverty and global hunger that if you had the ability you would clothe all of the people who are naked right now who don't have clothing right if you had the ability you you and i could teach all the people who need teaching and who need guidance that if we could inshaAllah that we would assist all of the people who have been orphaned or who have been who are in a state of being refugees and if we could we would assist all the people who are being repressed or oppressed in any way shape or form by any government or any tyranny throughout the world those are your some of the intentions if Allah if you sincerely make the intention and if a door of good opens for you to work for something or to to do that you make the eye regularly for those people inshaAllah you will be counted amongst those people inshaAllah who did do that thing on the day of judgment because the action is by their intention and the intention is greater than the action i could sit here right now and make intentions to fix do all this stuff and throughout the world then i'm just over here sitting in my living room and it's it's a great shortcut but believe me it's a powerful powerful shortcut this is a time right now that we live in it's a good time for shortcuts because it's hard to do a lot of work it's hard to do a lot so let's leverage these shortcuts inshaAllah and we're just going to end with a story if anybody has any questions by the way please do post them in the chat and we will try to get to them so we're just going to end with this story inshaAllah so this is a really really amazing story and the story is that it was a pious man i believe it's a story of bani israel and he was just busy in the service of god for a long time and people knew that this was a very very righteous man and so one day somebody came and told him you know there's a bunch of people over there instead of worshiping god they like worship a tree right they're prostrating to tree they worship a tree so this man was like yo that's not cool i'm going to go cut down this tree because why are they worshiping god now while he's on the way to cut down the tree who had gotten them to worship the tree in the first place satan the devil and so satan appears to him in the form of like an old looking wise man and he's like you know where are you going the pious man is like i'm going to go cut the tree down that all those people are worshiping and the man and and so satan goes no no no you're a devout man and you have a lot of religious duties on you why don't you just like why are you leaving all your ibad that you have all the dhikr to do you have this to read you have that to be why are you leaving all that to go focus on something don't waste your time with the other people and the man said it's also my duty right he understood to prevent people from worshiping what is other than Allah i'm going to go cut the tree this satan says i'm not going to let you cut the tree so now they start going at it right and they start fighting the man's trying to get there the satan is blocking him within a few seconds the man has satan down right he has him down he said and and he throws him down in the ground and then the pious man starts just sits on satan's chest and as soon as he's about to take him out satan says yo hold up i want to tell you something just hear me out so the pious man stopped and let him go for a second he says why are you cutting the tree god didn't order you to cut it right you don't worship the tree it's fine with you why are you putting yourself in difficulty in creating all these problems and if it was so important why didn't god send a prophet to cut down the tree the man didn't move an inch and he said no no no i'm going to cut the tree down because the man wasn't about to be duped in this situation so then they start fighting again and again the man gets satan down right and he has him down and so now he sits on the chest and he's about to knock him out again and satan is like yo hold up wait i got a solution for it for us but both of us could agree let me tell you let's come up with the middle ways come up with an agreement he says what tell me what you are you know you're a devil and and i'm trying to be devoted to god he says get off my chest set me free and i'll tell you satan says this so the man gets off his chest and he sets him free and now he says yo listen you spend all your time worshiping allah but you also like you know probably need some money don't you need some money right so don't you want your family to kind of live in better circumstances the pious man is thinking yes i do and so satan says okay so stop worrying about other people stop tripping about what other people are doing leave the tree okay it won't really do anything and instead focus on your family he says go home and take care of them if you do that every night i will come and i'll place some a couple coins of gold under your pillow and then you can spend that gold on your family and the relatives and the man thinks and thinks and thinks and he's like you know what this man is right like satan basically he thinks satan is right i'm not a prophet i haven't been given any special instruction from allah to cut the tree if allah really wanted the tree to be cut he could have just cut it so and my family is my responsibility and so if i just go and then i'll get the money under my pillow and so this will be good so he makes the deal he accepts the deal so then he wakes up the next day he finds the two gold coins and he's like okay cool and then he woke up the second day and finds the coins and he keeps waking up and then eventually he stops finding the coins and so he goes again to cut the tree and again now he's like i'm gonna cut the tree but the first time the this time now satan comes again and he's like yo where are you going he says i'm going to cut the tree and satan's like no no no no no no i told you not to cut the tree and they start fighting again but the first time the first two times the man had satan in like a toe cold right and he was about to knock him out this time satan gets on him and he pushes the pious man down immediately down and the tables turn and satan sits on this man and he tries to escape and he tries to escape but he keeps he loses the battle and he says hold on just a couple of days ago i knocked you out and now i'm not able to not to to do this what happened how come i can't even defend myself today and you're completely demolishing me today and now satan starts laughing he says it's because of your nia your intention yesterday when you came across me your intention to cut this tree was purely for the sake of allah you wanted to do it for the sake of allah you wanted to do it for the sake of serving allah pleasing allah preventing people from worshipping allah now when you came to cut the tree you just wanted those gold coins that i stopped leaving under you and your intention was not for allah that's your faith was not as strong as you were not given this amazing strength and so i overpowered you look at this amazing story that the power of one's intention just like actually where this physical manifestation of satan came satan and our nafs they're after us all day but how sincere you are how sincere i am how sincere we are that is how clearly we will be able to beat them in this battle in this fight that we are that we are engaged in sincerity of intention is a sword that cuts through everything it is that is in our way that is standing in our path especially cuts through the tricks of so remember that intentions can be extremely powerful make righteous intentions if we're feeling bored if we're feeling confused if we're feeling demotivated if we're feeling down if we're feeling depressed take some time turn to allah make a sincere intention that we want to live our life in a way that we want to serve allah we want to please allah we want to make allah happy we want to make allah we want allah to use us in his service we want allah to use whatever talents he has blessed us with to serve him and to spread this deen or whatever intention you want to make that is pure and that is good and allah will start opening doors and inshallah if you've been let down once or let down twice keep getting back up the power of the intention can completely change things but don't go through life just complete just going through the motions without making intentions and just letting our life come by and go by rather until our hair turns gray and our skin gets wrinkly and we wonder how did we spend our time no spend your time making righteous intentions still be balanced with regards to worship and with regards to life but make the intention to do something for the sake of allah and watch the doors that will open if every muslim that was on this planet they made a sincere intention to serve allah and allah opened that door and accepted that intention there would be so much khair that would come to the umma so much good that would come to the umma of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam there's so much work that needs to be done there's so much uh khair and good that needs to be that needs to be spread in this world that we are living in but it begins with the intention that in order for us to truly achieve virtue in a time of vice we have to be pure with our intention we ask that allah make us people of righteous intentions that he give us the ability to regularly make good intentions and that he allow us to achieve the states that the greatest of his friends and his close ones achieved in this life wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam abarik ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala arihi wa sahbihi wa sallam walhamdulillahi rabbil alamin jazaqa ma lakhair assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh i'm just going to check if there are any questions i don't believe so but i'll just check briefly right now alhamdulillahi i don't believe there's any questions jazaqa ma lakhair inshallah we'll see you all next week please keep us in your du'as keep us umma in your du'as subhanakallahu wabayhamdeku nashadu allah ilahe nastaq firukana matubu alayk wa sallallahu wa sallam wa baraka ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala arihi wa sahbihi wa sallam walhamdulillahi rabbil alamin assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh