The issue of intention is central to the study of ethics. Differences among religions, philosophies and ethical systems on the issue of intention are critical to understanding their similarities and their distinctions.
I did not expect to address the issue of intention in Islam at this point, feeling much better equipped to address both Jewish and Christian approaches, but I encountered an intriguing Islamic source on the subject and was drawn to follow that source.
The source is a commentary by a contemporary scholar on a classic work. Dr. Jamal Ahmed Badi of the International Islamic University of Malaysia is the scholar and his commentary on “The 40 Hadiths of Al-Nawawi”, is available at: http://fortyhadith.ilu.edu.my/.
In his Introduction Dr. Badi writes:
“The collection of Forty Hadith by al-Imam al-Nawawi (or Imam Nawawi) has been known, accepted and appreciated by Muslim scholars for the last seven centuries. Its significance lay in the fact that these selected forty hadiths comprise the main essential and fundamental concepts of Islam which, in turn, construct the minimum level of required revealed knowledge for every single Muslim.”
First, we should say that a hadith is a statement or saying or action attributed directly to the Prophet Mohammed or to which he gave his tacit approval, but that is not included in the Qur’an.
There are tens of thousands of hadiths. One collection is said to comprise 40,000 and one scholar is said to have memorized 100,000. So, the description of 40 as comprising “the main essential and fundamental concepts of Islam” makes quite a statement about each one selected.
The first of the 40 hadiths selected by al-Nawawi deals with the subject of intention.
“It is narrated on the authority of Amirul Mu’minin, Abu Hafs ‘Umar bin al-Khattab, radiyallahu’anhu, 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]”
The more contemporary translation, and the shorthand citation of this hadith is:
“Verily actions are by intentions, and for every person is what he intended.”
There is a history of falsification of hadiths so there is also a long tradition of validating them. According to Ibn Rajab Al-Hanbali, writing about the “Hadith of Intention”:
“The scholars have agreed to its authenticity and have unanimously accepted it.” (Sunnahonline.com The Hadith of Intention).
There is also a formal system of grading hadiths in terms of the degree to which they can be relied upon. The Hadith of Intention is formally graded muttafaqun alayhi, which means, essentially: unquestioned.
This hadith is brought by Umar ibn Al-Khattab, who was a senior Companion of the Prophet and the 2nd Caliph; a source contemporaneous with the Prophet.
Abu ‘Ubayad, also a contemporary of the Prophet said:
“The Prophet…collected all the affairs of this world in one statement, ‘Verily actions are by intentions…’”
The source quoted above, Al-Bukhari, was Imam Al-Bukhari whose dates are in the second and third centuries after the death of Mohammed. His major collection of hadith, known as the Sahih, is highly regarded and considered authoritative. The Hadith of Intention is hadith number 1 in Book 1 of Volume 1 of the Sahih.
Imam ash-Shafi’i, whose dates overlapped but were slightly earlier than those of Al-Bukhari, said
“This hadith constitutes a third of all knowledge”.
Ash-Shafi’i was known as one of the “four great imams” whose legacy on judicial matters was and is very influential.
Imam Ahmad, a contemporary and student of ash-Shafi’i, who also wrote a major commentary on a collection of hadith said:
“The foundations of Islam are upon three ahadith…1. The hadith of ‘Umar, ‘Verily actions are by intention’…”
So, he gave it first place among three.
Ishaq ibn Rahawayah, friend and contemporary of Ahmad, said:
‘The foundations of the religion are upon four hadith….1. The hadith of Umar, ‘Verily actions are by intention’.”
So, here it is first among four.
Abu Dawud, like ‘Umar, one of the Companions of the Prophet, is quoted as saying of the hadith collected in his work, the Sunan:
“It suffices man that he knows from all these ahadith, 4 ahadith” and the first of the 4 listed is: “Verily actions are by intention”.
So, the decision of al-Nawawi to list as first among his 40 hadith the Hadith of Intention, is grounded in the earliest and most authoritative texts and figures of Islam. Those who were contemporaries of the Prophet; the Companions; and, some among the first political leaders and the earliest legal and religious scholars of the tradition, identified that particular hadith as either the first or among the first in importance for all Muslims to know and understand.
Regarding al-Nawawi, since he lived some 600 years after the time of the Prophet, I think it is also important to place him, for reference, in the spectrum of Islamic thought.
Khaled El Fadl, a contemporary Islamic scholar, in his book “The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists” gives us a vocabulary to use in segmenting the spectrum of Islamic thought.
At the liberal end of the spectrum are those that El Fadl terms Moderates. At the opposite, extreme end of the spectrum are the Puritans. In the middle are the Conservatives and the Traditionalists.
As a benchmark, El Fadl clearly places ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban among the Puritans.
As a matter of interest, Aljazeera reported on January 8, 2015 that the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, the al-Nusra Front, had destroyed the tomb of Imam al-Nawawi.
If Al-Qaeda thought it appropriate to destroy Al-Nawawi’s tomb we can probably be sure that he was not considered by them to be ideologically “pure”. He would not fall under the Puritan definition of Dr. El Fadl.
What do we have on this subject so far and what do we need?
We have an early, authoritative hadith, placed by multiple highly-respected jurists and scholars as among the most important in Islam, that appears to elevate intention above either action or outcome. And we’ve seen elsewhere that giving prominence to intention can create a very dangerous environment.
What we need to do now is look closely at what intention really means in the context used in this teaching and what its relationship is to both action and outcome.
copyright: Charles R. Lightner