لا ثواب إلا بالنيَّة
By ijmāʿ, the reward in question is the reward of the hereafter, not of this world. No action draws reward or punishment unless its doer intended it.
By ijmāʿ, intention is a precondition for reward in ʿibādah. It is not, however, required for every act of ʿibādah to be valid.
A person is rewarded for intending any of the following:
If the requirements of the act are met without intention, the act still counts as performed.
If a person stands in the rain such that all the farḍ of wuḍūʾ are completed, he is in a state of wuḍūʾ and may pray with it; he earns no reward, however, for the wuḍūʾ itself.
One might ask why intention is required for tayammum but not for wuḍūʾ. The reason is the relevant Qurʾānic verse, together with the fact that tayammum is by definition an act of intention.
Washing a dead body does not require intention for the act to be valid. There are two reasons. First, the funeral ṣalāh over the deceased is valid whether or not the washer intended the act. Second, the body attains its purity regardless of the washer's state of mind. The only intention required is the intention to discharge the collective obligation: if no one were to perform the washing, all would be sinful.
A subsidiary question follows: how many times should a person who has drowned be washed? Imām Abū Yūsuf holds that the body should be washed three times. Imām Muḥammad holds that if the body is retrieved from the water with the intention of washing, two washes suffice; if there was no such intention, three. Imām Abū Ḥanīfah holds that the body should be washed only once, as recorded in Fatḥ al-Qadīr.
For the remaining ʿibādāt, intention is required for the act to be valid, with one exception: entering Islam. A person who is forced to enter Islam still becomes a Muslim. The reverse case is the man forced to utter a statement of disbelief: he is not counted a disbeliever unless he intended his words.
To follow the imām in ṣalāh, a muqtadī must intend to do so. The imām himself, by contrast, need not intend to lead, unless women are present in the congregation. Imām al-Karkhī and Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr held otherwise; some scholars have also required the imām to intend leadership in Jumuʿah and the two Eid prayers.
If a man takes an oath not to lead anyone, and while he is praying another person joins behind him as a muqtadī, the prayer of both is valid; the man who took the oath, however, earns no reward for the leadership. Has he broken his oath? Outwardly, the qāḍī would judge that he has, since to any onlooker that is what occurred. In truth, however, he has not.
The same ruling applies if the man, having taken the oath, then led the Jumuʿah ṣalāh: the prayer is valid both for him as imām and for the muqtadī.
Delivering the Jumuʿah khuṭbah requires the intention to do so. If a man on the pulpit sneezes and says alḥamdulillāh in response to the sneeze without intending it for the khuṭbah, the khuṭbah is not valid; that ḥamd cannot stand in for the ḥamd of the khuṭbah, as Fatḥ al-Qadīr and others record. The same ruling applies to the Eid khuṭbah, even though the Jumuʿah khuṭbah comes before the prayer and the Eid khuṭbah after it.
The adhān does not require intention to be valid; as noted earlier, however, no reward attaches without intention.
Covering the ʿawrah requires no intention to be valid, and there is no disagreement on the point.
Broadly, in ṭahārah and ṣalāh intention is not needed for an act to be valid, but it is needed to earn the reward. In a few cases intention is needed for validity itself, as the table below sets out.
| Scenario | Intention needed |
| wuḍūʾ | No |
| ghusl | No |
| masḥ | No |
| Removing impurity from body/clothing | No |
| tayammum | Yes |
| Washing dead body | No |
| To become Muslim | No |
| To become non-Muslim | Yes |
| imām to lead ṣalāh (without women) | No |
| imām to lead ṣalāh with women | Yes |
| Person to follow the imām | Yes |
| To deliver khuṭbah | Yes |
| To give adhān | No |
| To cover the ʿawrah | No |
Zakāh is not considered discharged unless the giver intends it at the moment of giving the money.
Fasting is valid only with a fresh intention each day, whether the fast is farḍ, sunnah or nafl; the intention must be made specifically for the day in question.
Iʿtikāf likewise requires an intention, whether farḍ, sunnah or nafl.
Ḥajj also requires intention to be valid, whether the ḥajj is farḍ or nafl. The same applies to ʿumrah.
Kaffārah1 requires an intention to be valid, regardless of the form it takes: freeing a slave, fasting, or feeding the poor.
The uḍḥiyyah requires an intention at the time of purchase, not at the moment of sacrifice. A subsidiary case: a man buys an animal intending it for uḍḥiyyah, and someone else slaughters it without his permission. If the owner accepts the slaughter as the sacrifice and does not seek compensation, his uḍḥiyyah is fulfilled; if he seeks compensation for the animal, the uḍḥiyyah is not.
Freeing a slave is not classed as an act of ʿibādah: a non-Muslim's manumission is valid, and a non-Muslim cannot perform ʿibādah. A Muslim who frees a slave for the sake of Allah is therefore rewarded; one who frees a slave without intention has performed a valid act but earns no reward.
Jihād requires an intention. The bequest of a will follows the same rule as freeing a slave: if intended for the pleasure of Allah one is rewarded; if not, the act is still valid. Waqf (the dedication of land for purposes such as building a mosque) does not require intention for validity, but it does for reward, since even a non-Muslim's waqf is accepted.
Nikāḥ is said to approach ʿibādah, since marriage is held to be more virtuous than singleness. As an emphasised sunnah, nikāḥ requires an intention for reward, whether the intention be chastity, the avoidance of ḥarām, or the desire for children. Intention is not, however, required for the nikāḥ itself to be valid: a marriage contracted in jest still binds.
Qaḍāʾ is reckoned among the ʿibādāt, so reward for it depends on intention. The same applies to sentencing and admonition, to the appointment of guardians, and to the giving of testimony in court: each is rewarded according to the agent's intention.
Permissible acts such as eating, drinking and sleeping earn reward when a person performs them intending to draw strength for obedience to Allah and to seek nearness to Him.
Trade requires no intention. The same applies to the cancellation of transactions2 and to renting; neither requires intention for validity.
Gifting3 does not require intention either; a gift made in jest still counts. If, however, a person takes possession of an item under the pretence that it is a gift, no gift has taken place; not because intention is required (we have said it is not), but because the giver's pleasure in giving is absent. For the same reason, a gift made under coercion is not valid.
Divorce and manumission are different: even when the words are uttered under coercion, the ṭalāq or ʿitq takes effect, since the giver's contentment with the outcome4 is not a condition for either.
Ṭalāq5 is of two kinds: Ṣarīḥ6 and kināyah7.
Ṭalāq ṣarīḥ does not require intention to take effect: if a man pronounces divorce while inattentive or by mistake, the divorce nevertheless occurs. Even mispronunciation of the letters8 effects the divorce, provided the wife was the one intended.
If a man is teaching or revising the topic of divorce in his wife's presence and says "You are divorced", no divorce occurs. Likewise, if he had written "My wife is divorced" or "You are divorced" and the wife asks him to read the words aloud and he does so, no divorce occurs, since he did not intend the words as a pronouncement of divorce9.
If a man divorces his wife in jest, the divorce takes effect10, for the Prophet ﷺ has said:
A man cannot intend three _ṭalāq_s by the words "you are divorced"11; only one will occur. Nor can he intend a ṭalāq bāʾin12 through them; he must instead use words that encompass the meaning of three, for example by specifying the number.
Likewise, two _ṭalāq_s will not occur13 through the maṣdar "انت الطلاق", since the maṣdar carries the sense of one or of plural, not of two. If the man intended three by the phrase, three occur; otherwise one is the default.
Ṭalāq kināyah14 requires intention to take effect, whether or not the word ṭalāq accompanies the kināyah expression.
In tafwīḍ ṭalāq15, khulʿ16, īlāʾ17 and ẓihār18, the clear formulations require no intention; the unclear ones do. Rajʿah follows the rule for nikāḥ: clear formulations require no intention, unclear ones do.
Yamīn19 does not require an intention. The oath is binding whether it was sworn deliberately, accidentally, by mistake, or under coercion.
Iqrār20 and wakālah21 are valid without intention. So too with īdāʿ22, ʿāriyah23, qadhf24 and theft: none requires intention to take effect.
Qiṣāṣ25 turns on the killer's intention. Intention, however, is hidden, and so the instrument of killing is examined. If the weapon is one that ordinarily cleaves the body, the killing is presumed intentional and qiṣāṣ is required.
If the object used to kill is not by purpose a cleaving tool, even though in practice it kills the majority of the time, the case resembles intentional killing in form. Under Imām Abū Ḥanīfah's view, however, qiṣāṣ does not apply. A genuinely accidental killing26 does not entail qiṣāṣ at all; it takes the ruling laid out in the chapters of jināyāt27.
It is said that the Qurʾān shifts in legal status according to the reciter's intention, such that a ḥāʾiḍah28 or junub29 may recite adhkār30 with the intention of dhikr, or recite duʿāʾ with the intention of duʿāʾ. In such cases the recitation is reckoned dhikr or duʿāʾ, not Qurʾān.
An objection arises: if one prays ṣalāh and recites Qurʾān while intending dhikr, the ṣalāh is still valid. The commentary on Kanz al-Daqāʾiq answers that the Qurʾān is being recited in its proper liturgical setting, so its status does not shift, on account of ʿaẓīmah31. Likewise, reading Sūrat al-Fātiḥah in the ṣalāt al-Janāzah32 with the intention of dhikr is not impermissible.
Abstaining from a prohibited act requires no intention. To earn reward for the abstention, however, restraint must be involved: the person must be able to commit the act, and the heart must desire it, yet he holds back out of fear of Allah; only then is he rewarded. Where there is no restraint, or where the act is impossible to begin with, no reward attaches. A man locked up cannot earn reward for refraining from adultery, nor can an impotent man, nor a blind man for refraining from looking at the ḥarām.
Recompense for missing ṣalāh, ṣawm or breaking an oath. ↩
إقالة ↩
الهبة ↩
الرضا ليس بشرطهما ↩
Divorce. ↩
Divorce using clear words, such as "You are divorced". ↩
Divorce using unclear words, such as "I never want to see you again". ↩
Or diacritical marks. ↩
The divorce might occur قضاء (according to the qāḍī), but not ديانة. ↩
Both قضاء and ديانة. ↩
انت طالق, as stated in al-Qudūrī. However, with words such as انت الطالق, انت طالق الطلاق, انت طالق طلاقاً, if there is no intention then one ṭalāq will occur; if there is an intention for two only one would occur; and if there is an intention for three, then three would occur. ↩
Irrevocable divorce, which is to give divorce three times in one go, or to give divorce on three separate occasions within one ṭuhr period. ↩
Except in the case of a slave. ↩
Using unclear words for divorce such as "you are single", "you are ḥarām for me" etc. ↩
When the right to give ṭalāq is delegated to the wife by saying طلقي نفسك or the like. ↩
When the wife pays a sum of money to husband in order for him to divorce her. ↩
When a man says to his wife "I will not come next to you for four months" and four months pass, then one ṭalāq bāʾin will occur. ↩
When a man says to his wife "You are to me like the back of my mother", the wife becomes ḥarām upon him. ↩
Oaths by taking the name of Allah. ↩
When one testifies against themself, such as saying "I owe this much to so and so". ↩
Transferring of guardianship to someone else for transactions. ↩
To make a claim/accuse/testify against someone. ↩
To be given a service/benefit without needing to pay for it, such as someone saying "I will feed you this", or "I will carry you on this animal", or "My house is a place of residence for you". ↩
To accuse someone of adultery. ↩
Capital punishment. ↩
Such as when one intends to shoot an arrow at a person thinking they are an animal (mistake in intention), or such as when one intends to hit a target, but hits a person (mistake in action). ↩
Chapter on recompense; in this case the compensation will be kaffārah (freeing a Muslim slave) and giving blood money. ↩
Woman in the state of menstruation. ↩
Person in need of farḍ ghusl. ↩
Verses of remembrance, such as saying "subḥānallāh" or "lā ilāha illā Allāh". ↩
Its greatness. ↩
There is no Qurʾān recitation in the ṣalāt al-Janāzah. ↩
والأداء أنواع كامل و قاصر و ما هو شبيه بالقضاء. Adāʾ is of three types: kāmil, qāṣir, and that which resembles qaḍāʾ.
ولا يقتضي التكرار و لا يحتمله: and the amr does not demand repetition, nor does it encompass it. The difference between mūjib and muḥtamil, and how the Aḥnāf account for the repetition of acts of worship through their asbāb.
وحكم الأمر نوعان أداء و هو تسليم عين الواجب بالأمر و قضاء و هو تسليم مثل الواجب به The ruling of …
The opening ḥadīth of Imām al-Nawawī's Forty: actions are judged by their intentions, and a person has of an act only what they intended by it.
