(1) I add: Muslim and others relate a variant that reads, “and your deeds,” and it is documented in Ghayat al-Maram fi Takhrij al-Halal wa-l-Haram, no. 410. This addition is crucial, for many people misread the hadith without it. When you instruct them to comply with the Sharia—such as growing the beard or avoiding imitation of non-Muslims—they reply that only the heart matters and cite this hadith, unaware of the authentic clause showing that Allah also looks at their deeds: if they are righteous He accepts them, otherwise He rejects them, as in the Prophet’s words, “Whoever introduces into our affair what is not part of it, it is rejected” (hadith 173). In truth, sound hearts are inconceivable without sound deeds, and vice versa. The Prophet ﷺ made this clear in the hadith of al-Nuʿman b. Bashir: “There is a morsel of flesh: if it is sound the whole body is sound, and if it is corrupt the whole body is corrupt; it is the heart” (hadith 593); in another hadith: “Straighten your rows or Allah will cause your faces—that is, your hearts—to differ” (hadith 1096); and in his statement, “Allah is beautiful and loves beauty,” which refers to lawful physical beauty (hadith 617). With this in mind, one of the gravest errors I have found in every manuscript and printed copy of al-Riyad is that the author—may Allah have mercy on him—did note this addition under hadith 1578, but his pen, or his scribe’s, misplaced it so that the text now reads, “… nor to your forms and your deeds, but He looks ….” The mistake escaped all typesetters, proof-readers and even the commentator Ibn ʿAllan, who wrote (4/406): “The Exalted does not allot reward according to body size, beauty of form, or abundance of deeds.” This view is patently false, for it clashes with the sound wording of the hadith and with numerous Qurʾanic and Prophetic texts showing that people’s ranks in Paradise correspond to the quantity of their righteous deeds, such as, “For everyone there are degrees according to what they did” (al-Anʿam 6:132), and the divine saying, “O My servants, it is only your deeds that I record for you; then I shall repay you for them. Whoever finds good, let him praise Allah …” (hadith 113). How, then, could Allah disregard deeds—when they are the very basis for entering Paradise after faith, as in, “Enter Paradise for what you used to do” (al-Nahl 16:32)? See how blind imitation drives its followers far from the truth and into a deep abyss of error, solely because they neglect to study the Sunnah in its reliable, critically edited sources. Allah’s help is sought. –N–