As for action (1), its affliction is its failure to conform to Allah’s religious will—the will He loves and approves. That failure may originate either in corrupt knowledge or in corrupt intention.

Corruption that stems from knowledge is to assume that an act is divinely prescribed and beloved when it is not, or to suppose that it brings one nearer to Allah although it has no scriptural basis. A person then imagines he is worshipping Allah through a deed whose legitimacy he has never ascertained.

Corruption that stems from intention, on the other hand, is to perform the deed without seeking Allah’s Face and the Hereafter, but rather to seek worldly gain and the favor of people.

There is no protection from these two maladies—of knowledge and of action—except by, in the realm of understanding, learning what the Messenger brought, and, in the realm of resolve, directing one’s aim to Allah and the abode of the Hereafter. Whenever such knowledge and such intention are absent, both knowledge and action become unsound.

Faith and certainty give rise to sound knowledge and sound intention; and those, in turn, generate and reinforce faith.

It thus becomes clear that most people’s deviation from faith is due to their deviation from sound knowledge and sound intention.

Faith is not complete unless one receives knowledge from the mishkāt of Prophethood—the niche that sheds the light of revelation—and unless one purges the will of the impurities of caprice and the desire for people’s approval. When a person’s knowledge is drawn from the niche of revelation and his intention is solely for Allah and the Hereafter, he possesses the soundest knowledge and the soundest action. Such a person ranks among those leaders who guide by Allah’s command and among the successors of His Messenger ﷺ within this community.