Assalam-o-alaikum Ustazah,

This ayah scares me in Surah Kahaf:

103. Say (O Muhammad ): "Shall we tell You the greatest losers In respect of (their) deeds?
104. "Those whose efforts have been wasted In This life while they thought that they were acquiring good by their deeds!
105. "They are those who deny the Ayât (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.) of their Lord and the Meeting with Him (in the Hereafter). so their works are In vain, and on the Day of Resurrection, we shall not give them any weight.

Another ayah with a similar message and a dramatic description is:

.. the parable of those who disbelieve In their Lord is that their works are as ashes, on which the wind blows furiously on a stormy day, they shall not be Able to get aught of what they have earned. That is the straying, far away (from the Right Path). Surah Ibrahim ayah 18.

Looking back at life we might see many good deeds but we might not remember what our intentions were when we did them. If there was the slightest of shirk, in the form of wanting to be recognised, or praised or bring popular....than those deeds are wasted.

Long time ago i worked at a place and started a small project all by myself and spend countless hours on it. I remember the back ache, shoulder ache, the tiredness, fatigue, frustrations, that i faced while working on that project. Unfortunately it was only for the duniya, there was no intention for Allah, for his deen, or for his people.....it was just my interest. Well, it did get rewarded a little bit in the form of minimum hourly payment BUT that money was gone even before i knew it, and so was the work.

That work always reminds me that whatever i do, i have to think why, and make my intentions purely for Allah’s sake otherwise it will be lost in this duniya with nothing in the akhirah. Also, this experience gives me hope that whenever i work for Allah’s sake, He will not just see my hours or the end result, He will see the efforts, the purity of intentions, which no man in this world can judge.

It seems every day we should renew our Imaan so that any of our hard work does not go wasted. Again Taqwa is what we need.

May Allah give us the focused vision and the purest of intentions based only on Taqwa to work for his deen in any way possible. Ameen

Wasalaam

Shazia Afzal