“Do not drive away those who call upon their Lord morning and evening, seeking His Face” (al-Anʿām 6:52). Allah—exalted is He—forbade him to repel such people, even though they were poor and held no standing in society, for they possess great worth with Allah. Morning and evening—that is, day and night—they appeal to Him with the supplication of request: they ask for His pleasure and for Paradise, and they seek refuge in Him from the Fire.

They also call upon Him with the supplication of worship, for every act of worship contains duʿāʾ. During the prayer, for example, one says: Rabbighfir lī (My Lord, forgive me); Rabbana ātinā fī l-dunyā ḥasanah wa fī l-ākhirah ḥasanah (Our Lord, grant us good in this world and good in the Hereafter); al-salāmu ʿalaynā wa ʿalā ʿibādillāh al-ṣāliḥīn (Peace be upon us and upon the righteous servants of Allah), and similar phrases. The worshipper performs all this solely to attain the pleasure of Allah, exalted is He.

The words “seeking His Face” point to sincerity, and sincerity has a profound effect on the acceptance of deeds and the elevation of those who perform them in Allah’s sight. The more sincere a person is in his actions, the more pleasing they are to Allah and the greater his reward. How often two people stand side by side performing the same prayer, yet the difference in their rank, reward, and recompense before Allah is as vast as the distance between heaven and earth—solely because one of them was sincere while the other was not.

A person, therefore, must make every effort to purify his intention for Allah in all acts of worship, never seeking by them any worldly gain. He should aim for nothing but Allah’s pleasure and reward, so that he may attain honor in both this world and the Hereafter.

At the end of the verse Allah, exalted be He, says: “You are not accountable for them in the least, nor are they accountable for you, so that you should drive them away.” In other words, you bear no responsibility for their deeds, nor do they for yours.