and if, in addition, he does good, he combines both qualities: his deeds are righteous, and he associates no one in the worship of his Lord. This is expressed in the words of ‘Umar, may Allah be pleased with him:

“O Allah, make all my deeds righteous, make them sincerely devoted to seeking Your Face, and give no one any share in them.”

Righteous action is doing good: performing the good deeds Allah has commanded. What Allah has commanded is what He has prescribed, in accordance with His way and the Sunnah of His Messenger. Allah Most High has thus declared that whoever devotes his intention sincerely to Allah and does good in his actions deserves reward and is safe from punishment.

For this reason, the leading scholars of the early generations would bring these two principles together. For example, concerning the words of Allah Most High:

“To test you as to which of you is best in deeds,”

al-Fudayl ibn ‘Iyād said: “The most sincere and the most correct.” He was asked: “Abū ‘Alī, what is meant by the most sincere and the most correct?”

He replied: “If a deed is correct but not sincere, it will not be accepted. If it is sincere but not correct, it will not be accepted until it is both sincere and correct. To be sincere is to be done for Allah, and to be correct is to accord with the Sunnah.”

Ibn Shāhīn and al-Lālakā’ī narrated that Sa‘īd ibn Jubayr said:

“Neither speech nor action is accepted without intention, and neither speech, action, nor intention is accepted without conformity to the Sunnah.”

They also narrated a similar statement from al-Hasan al-Basrī, whose wording has “is not sound” in place of “is accepted.”

This refutes the Murji’ah, who consider speech alone sufficient. He made clear that both speech and action are indispensable, for faith consists of speech and action: both are necessary, as we have explained at length elsewhere. We have also explained that mere affirmation in the heart and on the tongue