and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Therefore, any deed that is not carried out with pure devotion is not a righteous deed. If a person stands to pray yet does so merely to impress others, his prayer will not be accepted—even if he fulfills all its conditions, pillars, obligations, recommended acts, and maintains perfect composure, and even if outwardly it seems flawless—because it has been adulterated by shirk (associating partners with Allah). Whoever associates anyone with Allah in an act of worship will find that Allah does not accept that act. In the sound report narrated by Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), the Prophet ﷺ said that Allah the Exalted declares: “I am the One who is most free of need from having partners. Whoever performs a deed in which he associates someone else with Me, I abandon him and his association.”

Likewise, if a person is wholly sincere in his action yet introduces an innovation that the Messenger ﷺ did not legislate, the deed will still not be accepted, even if he weeps from the intensity of his humility. It will benefit him nothing, for every innovation was branded by the Prophet ﷺ as deviation: “Every newly introduced matter is an innovation, and every innovation is misguidance.”

He then said, “trials like patches of a pitch-black night.” He foretold that tribulations would appear like fragments of a dark, moonless night—God’s refuge is sought—meaning they will be so overcast and obscure that no light is visible within them. May Allah protect us from such ordeals.