Al-Salam ‘Alaykum, this is Syed Ali Imran – and you are listening to the Forties podcast, brought to you by Mizan institute.
This is episode 18 – The Best Rewards are Given in Return for Sincerity
قالت مولاتنا الزهراء (عليها السلام): من أصعد إلى الله خالص عبادته أهبط الله إليه أفضل مصلحته
Hadith #17: Anyone who sends their sincere worship towards Allah (swt), Allah (swt) will send down the best of rewards towards them.
Whenever a person does an act of worship for Allah with sincerity, this worship is carried up by the angels and eventually accepted by Allah (swt). After this, Allah sends down the best of rewards for the sincere, free of any stinginess and impurities. What are these rewards? Are these rewards, rewards for this world or the hereafter? Or are they the best of rewards for both this world and the hereafter? The narration doesn’t mention this explicitly, but what we can affirm is that it is definitely not just rewards for this world, because worldly rewards are temporary and diminish very quickly. They are temporal in nature.
It’s for this reason such worldly matters are of no significance in the eyes of the saints and the friends of Allah (swt), and so most definitely the rewards will be the rewards of the hereafter. But, are they just going to be rewards for the hereafter or will Allah (swt) give the best of rewards in relation to this world as well?
Sayyid Aḥmad Zanjānī says we cannot derive anything from this narration per se, but he mentions a story to make a point across. He says, this is similar to an incident where someone asked a person, do you want halwa for dessert or rice pudding? The person responded, is there a scarcity in pots and pans that you have to restrict yourself to just one of these? In this same vein we say, is there a scarcity in the treasure of Allah (swt) or a stinginess in the mercy of Allah (swt) that He would only restrict the best rewards of the hereafter in return of sincere worship and not give us the best of rewards that also pertain to this world? There are definitely no such limitations in Allah (swt) and so Allah (swt) may bless us with the best of rewards both in this world and in the hereafter.
But remember, this is only with the condition that we perform our acts of worship with sincerity, and so we pray to Allah (swt) to grant us the opportunity to engage in such sincere worship.
In the next episode we’ll discuss a narration from Imam ‘Askari (a) which highlights the fact that the world is too trivial and insignificant for it to be the only reward given for sincerity.
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Sayyid Ali studied in the seminary of Qom from 2012 to 2021, while also concurrently obtaining a M.A in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College of London in 2018. In the seminary he engaged in the study of legal theory, jurisprudence and philosophy, eventually attending the advanced kharij of Usul and Fiqh in 2018. He is currently completing his Masters of Education at the University of Toronto and is the head of a private faith-based school in Toronto, as well as an instructor at the Mizan Institute and Mufid Seminary.
