Shall the People Be Told?

Anas ibn Mālik again: man qāla lā ilāha illallāh mukhliṣan dakhala al-jannah. Qīla: a-fa-lā nubashshiru al-nās? The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: he who says lā ilāha illallāh with sincerity in his heart, with full yaqīn, full certainty, will definitely enter Paradise. The people became so excited that they said: O Messenger of Allah, shall we inform the people? Can we let the people know? Qāla: innī akhāfu an yattakilū — the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: I am afraid that if you let them know this, they will become complacent; they will begin to neglect good deeds, depending on this hadith of mine: since we have said lā ilāha illallāh, we are going to Paradise anyway — lā ilāha illallāh from the heart, and that is it; no more ṣalāh, no more tahajjud, no more fasting. They would become complacent.

Indeed one day the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was sitting in the garden of one of the Companions, nicely, beautifully — this is the Prophet of Mercy, Nabī al-Raḥmah, his heart full of mercy towards his Ummah — and whatever Jibrīl the Trustworthy had told him, he was so enraptured, so happy, that he said to Abū Hurayrah, who was listening: he who says lā ilāha illallāh sincerely, mukhliṣan, from the heart, will enter Paradise. Abū Hurayrah said: O Messenger of Allah, shall I tell the people? He said: go. Abū Hurayrah went out, and came back again, and said: O Messenger of Allah, they will not believe me; I need some evidence from you. He said: take my sandals, and show them to the people. So Abū Hurayrah went out again, and right at the gates, as he was about to come out of the garden, who should be standing at the door, about to come in, but ʿUmar. With the sandals of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in the hands of Abū Hurayrah — this little man, a Yemeni — ʿUmar asked where he was going. Abū Hurayrah, so happy, said that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had said that whoever says lā ilāha illallāh is going to enter Paradise, and that he was going to show this to the people as the proof. ʿUmar struck him on the head^* and told him to get back. This little man, Abū Hurayrah, came back to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said: O Messenger of Allah, he did not let me go. ʿUmar said: O Messenger of Allah, if you let the people know that if they say lā ilāha illallāh they are going to go to Paradise, they will become so complacent and so negligent; they will leave good deeds — no more, khalāṣ, no more practising Islam, because the Messenger of Allah has guaranteed them that they will go to Paradise. Yes, true.

But to maintain that īmān throughout one's life, keeping away from the forbidden, with that sincerity, is so difficult. It has to be worked on day and night, day and night, day and night: maintaining that īmān by obedience to the commandments of Allah (swt) — the five daily prayers, al-ṣalātu ʿimād al-dīn, prayer is the pillar of the religion; the daily dhikr; one's duties, one's obligations towards one's parents, towards the people under one's care, one's mother and father, one's wife and children, one's job. A person needs to be righteous at all times, and to live Islam according to the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). Then lā ilāha illallāh has a meaning; otherwise it has no meaning at all. A computer can say lā ilāha illallāh in perfect Arabic — and a computer, by that token, is a Muslim, since it has never committed kufr — but it does not understand the meaning of lā ilāha illallāh. A computer, a tape recorder: that is not it. Lā ilāha illallāh is said in the heart, and lived through the heart, if Allah wills.