and ability; and that will itself is the intention.

Thus the first clause means that no one acts without an intention, yet intentions differ immensely, diverging as far apart as heaven and earth.

Some people raise their intention to the summit, to the loftiest of aims, while others cast it into the rubbish heap, to the basest and most despicable of ends. You may even see two men perform the very same deed—identical in its beginning, its conclusion, and everything in between, in every movement and stillness, every word and every act—yet the gap between them is like that between heaven and earth, solely because their intentions differ.

Hence the principle is that every deed is inseparable from an intention, but intentions themselves vary and diverge.

For that reason he said, “and every person shall have only what he intended.” Each individual receives what he intended: if, in his legally prescribed actions, he seeks Allah and the Final Abode, he will obtain them; but if he seeks this worldly life, it may be granted to him—or it may not.

Allah, Exalted is He, says: “Whoever desires the fleeting world, We hasten for him therein whatever We will for whomever We please” (al-Isrāʾ 17:18). He did not say, “We hasten for him what he desires,” but rather, “whatever We will”—that is, not what he wills; and He said, “for whomever We please,” meaning not for every person. Thus He restricts both what is hastened and the one for whom it is hastened. Accordingly, some people receive exactly what they sought of this world, some receive only part of it, and some receive nothing at all.

As for the verse, “But whoever desires the Hereafter and strives for it as he ought while being a believer—their striving shall be appreciated” (al-Isrāʾ 17:19), such a person must inevitably reap the fruits of the deed he performed in pursuit of Allah’s countenance and the Abode of the Hereafter.