“إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ” implies that the person who is saying it is yearning primarily for Allah (SWT). It is their greatest objective in life to reach Allah (SWT), and it is their greatest objective to worship him because of who he is. When this is an implication of this statement, it becomes necessary that all acts of obedience that fall under this verse are done with absolute sincerity and there is no other motive but to reach Allah (SWT). What we call sincerity of intention is not what we are telling ourselves what we are doing the act for, but the true motivation of the act. There is a difference between telling oneself that there are sincere and allowing only the pleasure of Allah (SWT) to motivate them. A simple example is that a person has some work that they need to do and the work is related to someone who will meet them at the masjid for the work. They are coming primarily for that, otherwise, they did not have any plan to come to the masjid. They can tell themselves that they are coming for the sake of Allah (SWT), but the fact remains that this is not their true motive for coming. Yes, if they change their intention and set up the scenario in such a way that coming there was only for the sake of Allah (SWT), their intentions would be true, but the point is that it is not the voice inside that we sometimes summon, but rather, it is our true motives where our intentions lie. It takes a lot of effort to bring all of the ulterior motives together and push them aside so that there is nothing in front of a person but the pleasure of Allah (SWT). This is also what the kalimah of Ikhlas teaches us – it instills in us the message of tawhid in all aspects.
As we know, any act of worship or obedience, if it done for the sake of Allah (SWT), it is accepted and brings all of its rewards and effects, and if the act is done for some other reason, there is neither a reward for Allah (SWT) nor will the effects that have been promised occur. Sincerity, on one side, is a very simple and easy thing, but in reality, everyone knows that there are many different things that keep creeping into the mind and try to become our motives. Whatever it may be, Shaytan implants ideas into our minds, but the challenge for the slave of Allah (SWT) is to battle these things so that the worship is left only for the sake of Allah (SWT). Allah (SWT) will only accept the acts done exclusively for his sake. Allah (SWT) is pure and only accepts that which is pure. This is an important aspect of this statement and the discussion would be incomplete without bringing it up. May Allah (SWT) give us understand and tawfiq.
