Does thawab change according to the intention? What is the best intention?

- It is said that the degrees of thawab are different according to the intention; the best one is to attain Allah’s consent; the second one is fear of Allah; the third one is to enter Paradise and the fourth one is fear of Hell.
- I think there are people who worship according to those four groups today. Is the classification above correct or is there such a classification?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Niyyah (intention), which is a criterion for deeds, is the impetus that comes from the heart of a person and emerges in order to satisfy his desire at that moment. Therefore, intention is not only an element that sharpens man’s will but also a factor that triggers the spark of the first will that emerges depending on the relevant desire.

It will be useful to have a look at the following hadith and the reason why it was said in order to understand the issue better:

“The rewards of deeds are according to the intentions. Everybody will get the reward for what he has intended. So, whoever emigrated for the sake of Allah and His Messenger, his emigration was for Allah and His Messenger; and whoever emigrated for worldly benefits, or to marry a woman, his emigration was for the thing for what he emigrated.” (Bukhari, Nikah, 5; Muslim, Imarah, 155)

The following incident is narrated for the reason why the hadith above was said: After the Prophet (pbuh) migrated to Madinah, the Muslims started to migrate too. One of them was a woman called Umm Qays. A man wanted to marry her but she said, “I will not marry you if you do not migrate.” Thereupon, he migrated to Madinah and married her.

Everybody migrated in order to attain Allah and His Messenger’s consent, but that man migrated in order to marry Umm Qays; therefore, he was given the nickname “Muhajiru Umm Qays (the Migrant of Umm Qays)”. (see Ibn Hajar, Fathul-Bari, 1/10)

- After seeing that importance of intention, one should not hesitate that people’s deeds will be more rewarding according to their intentions. The quality of deeds increases according to the quality of the intention.

- There is no doubt that the highest rank among the degrees of servitude is related to the “consent of Allah”.

“(To the righteous soul will be said:) “O (thou) soul, in (complete) rest and satisfaction! Come back thou to thy Lord,- well pleased (thyself), and well-pleasing unto Him! Enter thou, then, among My devotees! Yea, enter thou My Heaven!” (al-Fajr, 89/27-30)

We can understand from the verse above that the highest degree is “to attain the consent of Allah”.

- Trying to attain the consent of Allah is a very great rank. However, “fear of Allah” expressed as “taqwa” in the Quran is a great criterion in this life of testing. Nevertheless, that fear is also divided into degrees.

Undoubtedly, the first and the highest level of it is to fear the lofty rank and grandeur of Allah’s Self.

- The level after that is to assume an attitude considering one’s own benefit and harm. To think of one’s benefit is to do righteous deeds by thinking about Paradise. To do deeds by thinking about Hell aims to avoid harm. There is not much difference between those two. However, since there are also issues such as watching the face of Allah and being with the prophets in Paradise, working with the intention of them can be considered a better deed.

Questions on Islam