Many ordinary people—and not a few of the educated class—have failed to observe this noble etiquette. They justify uttering such associationist expressions as: calling upon other than Allah in times of distress; asking the dead among the righteous for help; swearing by them instead of by Allah, and even adjuring Allah by their names. Yet when a scholar well-grounded in the Book and the Sunnah censures them, instead of assisting him in denouncing the evil, they turn the censure back on him and say: “Those who call upon other than Allah have good intentions! Actions are only by intentions, as the ḥadith states!”

In doing so they either ignore—or pretend to ignore, so as to appease the masses—that a good intention, even if present, never turns a bad deed into a good one. The meaning of the cited ḥadith is that righteous deeds are validated by sincere intentions; it does not mean that deeds which violate the Sacred Law become lawful and righteous simply because a good intention accompanies them. Only an ignoramus or a person with ulterior motives would claim otherwise.

Consider this: if a man were to pray facing a grave, that would be a reprehensible act, for it contradicts the aḥādīth and reports prohibiting prayer toward graves. Would any rational person claim that someone who persists in doing so after learning of the prohibition has a good intention and that his act is lawful? Certainly not—never! Exactly the same applies to those who seek relief from anyone other than Allah, forgetting Him at the very moment when they most desperately need His help and support. It is inconceivable that their intentions are good, let alone that their actions are righteous, while they knowingly persist in this evil.

140 – “O Allah, increase his wealth and offspring, and bless for him whatever You have provided him.”

Al-Ṭayālisī narrated it in his Musnad (1987): Shuʿbah told us, from Qatādah, who said: I heard Anas say, “Umm Sulaym said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, supplicate to Allah for him,’ meaning Anas, so he said …” and he mentioned the supplication.

I say: Its chain is authentic according to the criteria of the two Shaykhs, and al-Bukhārī also recorded it (4/…).