Actions are Judged by Intentions

It is narrated on the authority of Amirul Mukminin, Ummar bin al-Khattab r.a. who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, say:
“Actions are (judged) by motives (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended. Thus, he whose migration (hijrah) was to Allah and His Messenger, his migration is to Allah and His Messenger; but he whose migration was for some worldly thing he might gain, or for a wife he might marry, his migration is to that for which he migrated.” (Al-Bukhari & Muslim)


BACKGROUND
This Hadith was expressed by the Prophet SAW at the time when a man migrated from Makkah to Madinah during the Hijrah (emigration) for the sake of marrying someone. It is considered to be one of the greatest ahadith in Islam. According to Al-Imam al-Shafii, this Hadith is one third of the knowledge of Islam and it can be related to over 70 topics of Fiqh.

Al-Imam Ahmad (with reference to Al-Imam al-Shafii statement) said: Islam is based on three fundamentals or principals:
1. Actions of the heart –Our internal actions
2. Actions of the limbs –Our external actions
3. Interactions between people –Our daily dealings or “muamalat” with people

These three principals are captured in the following three Hadiths from the collection of Imam Nawawi’s 40 Hadith as agreed upon by Al-Bukhari and Muslim:
Hadith 1 –“Actions are judged by intention (actions of the heart)”
Hadith 5 –“Whosoever introduces into this affair of ours (i.e. Islam) something that does not belong to it, it is to be rejected.”
Hadith 6 –“Truly, what is lawful is clear, and what is unlawful is clear, and in between the two are matters which are doubtful which many people do not know …”

These ahadith can be seen as three criteria to help Muslims evaluate and judge what they do and say “as an ‘ibadah” (act of worship) in their daily lives. Intentions or Niyyah has two meanings:
1. The intention before performing an ‘ibadah (e.g. prayer, fast)
2. The willingness of performing an action
This Hadith refers to the second meaning above.

Source: Commentary on The Forty Hadith of Al-Nawawi ( page 16—17) by Dr. Jamal Ahmed Badi. Dr. Jamal Ahmed Badi is an Associate Professor at the Department of General Studies at the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM). Currently, he is the Director of the International Students’ Division, IIUM.