fulfilling an act of worship to "prove to yourself"

[anonymous]

is practicing certain acts of worship to prove to own yourself that you can achieve that particular thing/act of worship, considered as being insincere?

For example, if i wanted to give to charity to prove to myself that i can give my money away freely/am considerate of the poor, is this a bad thing. or if i get up for tahajjud, so that i can prove..well i dont know what, but it would feel good to achieve something that i feel is difficult for me and that i rarely (if ever) do.

so basically the main reason (but not the only, i would give charity, etc) is to a achieve a personal goal and prove something to myself.

im just wondering if any of that conflicts with keeping the intention purely for the sake of Allah/sincerity. how do you get rid of this type of thinking?

[ahmed_indian]

salaam,

i am not sure if i understood you properly. but if there are ur desires that says to you "you cant do it" and you fight against it and says "no, i can do it, i want to please my Allah", i think its fine inshallah.

intention should be to please Allah and earn His reward.

[Salahudeen]

I'm not sure but good question

[islamirama]

Intentions play a big role in what you do and we will be rewarded for what we intended. As one of the hadiths on this topic goes, a man traveled for sake of wealth, and other man travel to find a woman for marriage and another man traveled for sake of Allah in seeking knowledge. Each person's journey was for what they intended and expected at end of their journey.

With that said, if your intention is only to prove to yourself that you can do this than that is what you intended and that is what you will be rewarded for. However, It would be better to have more than a single intention. For example, lets say you want to prove to yourself that you can do something. There are number of ways to do it but you decided that lets do it in a way that would benefit me. lets do thajjud and prove i can do it or pray all 5 salahs on time with all the rakahs in each salah. This way i can get the reward for doing something good, improve my islam, and prove to my self i can do it. With that kind of intention you get both reward for ebadah and get to see yourself prove something. So again the hadith of the prophet (s) says you will get what you intended for it. So why not be wise about it and make an intention like that so inshallah it benefit you in more than way?

Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.

When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up

[Hamza Asadullah]

is practicing certain acts of worship to prove to own yourself that you can achieve that particular thing/act of worship, considered as being insincere?

For example, if i wanted to give to charity to prove to myself that i can give my money away freely/am considerate of the poor, is this a bad thing. or if i get up for tahajjud, so that i can prove..well i dont know what, but it would feel good to achieve something that i feel is difficult for me and that i rarely (if ever) do.

so basically the main reason (but not the only, i would give charity, etc) is to a achieve a personal goal and prove something to myself.

im just wondering if any of that conflicts with keeping the intention purely for the sake of Allah/sincerity. how do you get rid of this type of thinking?

Asalaamu Alaikum Wr Wb, the more good intentions you have the more you will be rewarded for the act. So before doing any act align your intentions with that of wanting to achieve the pleasure of Allah. So for example you may want to do a good act sincerely, thoroughly and as well as you can sameway an employee may want to do a job well for his employer in order to recieve the pleasure of his employer so that maybe he will promote him or get into his good books.

You must be aware Allah is watching you everytime you do your good deeds so do it as well as you can solely for the pleasure of Allah. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself targets in regards to Ibaadah but it is better to do a small act that you will repeat everyday than to do an act that you will only be able to do sometimes.

You must be as humble as possible and never think that you are the best of the good doers but think quite the opposite. Allah loves the humbleness so be humble and this in itself is worthy of great reward.

So align your intentions before every good act in order to please Allah as much as you can and this way your reward for the good deeds you do will increase inshallah.

And Allah knows best in all matters

[cat eyes]

just remember that you are the servant and his your creator. if you were working for an employer ud have to follow orders.. people dont complain coz there getting payed but what people don't believe that the person will get payed by Allah too for obeying him