and so it follows that he has not devoted his worship sincerely to Him. Clearly, these two verses indicate the obligation to act for Allah and the Hereafter more emphatically than they indicate the obligation to intend the particular act.

However, someone who supports the first view might say: Intending the specific kind necessarily entails intending the general category. Whoever intends the particular act has thereby intended to act for Allah by virtue of his faith, as explained above.

Someone who supports the second view says: The obligatory intention cannot precede the act by twenty years. Rather, it may precede it only by a short interval, or from the beginning of the time when it becomes due, according to the two differing views.

Moreover, the apparent purport of the evidence and analogical reasoning require the intention to be consciously present throughout the act of worship. Maintaining that conscious awareness during worship has been excused only because of the hardship involved. Yet there is no hardship in intending to worship Allah when undertaking each act of worship.

Furthermore, most people are Muslims by outward legal status; Islam only enters their hearts later, if it enters at all. If this intention is not made obligatory for them, they will not form it, and their hearts will remain devoid of it. They will thus become hypocrites, performing deeds merely out of habit and conformity, as is indeed the case with many people.