~Mukhlisin-The sincere ones~

Salaam,

I opened my notebook just now to jot down a few items on work when I came across notes I wrote during a talk in PMS by Dr Ayman Ewais about Mukhlisin (people who are Ikhlas-sincere, earnest). It was about the 11 fruits of being sincere. Being Ikhlas is not an easy thing to do especially with all these penyakit hati which all of us are prone to, such as being riak, ujub, and so on. In order for a deed to be accepted by Allah (swt) requires more than 99% sincerity, not even 99.9999% but 100%. One of the hardest trait to achieve, but if you succeed this is the compilation of 11 fruits of being sincere:

1. Gaining the pleasure of Allah (swt) and have your deeds accepted by Him. (what more can you ask for?)
   
2. Allah (swt) puts love to you in the hearts of other people (this can be seen as a sign of sincerity and accepted deeds).
3. Allah (swt) saves the slave from hardship in this world (remember the tales of the Prophet (saw)'s companions?).
4. You will get the reward even if there's a mistake without intention; i.e. it is still accepted (there was a story of a sahabah who wanted to give sadaqah at night unknowingly by others but mistakenly gave it to a prostitute, a thief and a rich person. Rasulullah (saw) informed him that his sadaqah was still accepted)
5. You will get the reward even if something stopped you from doing a good deed; from your intentions and sincerity (it is said that if a muslim went to a mosque intending to attend jama'ah but came in late and the jama'ah has already finished, he will still get the reward of praying in jama'ah even when he prayed alone)
   
6. When you do good deed, you won't get just 10-700 rewards, but endless (it is quite impossible to count rewards given by the Most Gracious and Most Merciful isn't it?)
   
7. You will get the reward even if something stopped you from doing a deed you habitually do (sounds similar to the above point? what this point means is if you normally do a certain good deed with istiqamah every single day [with sincerity of course!], if on a certain day something stopped you from doing it you will still obtain the reward)
8. If you are sincere, you'll feel very very strong (you are totally sincere and devoted to Him, and when He, the Most Strong and Giver of Strength backs you up, why shouldn't you feel strong? =D)
9. If you have Ikhlas, you'll get rewarded for every habitual thing you do (repeat: "for EVERY SINGLE habitual thing you do". eating, drinking, taking a shower, sleeping, reading, if you have sincerity in everything you do, each and every one of those will give you reward)
10. Ikhlas and intention is the scale of the work done (a small piece of work but with 100% Ikhlas will give you huge rewards, but a huge piece of work not at 100% Ikhlas in doing it will only give you a small reward-- this is an adaptation of a Hadith told by Dr Ayman)
11. You get goodness and barakah in this world and the Hereafter (again, what more can you ask for?)

Dr Ayman mentioned of two types of worship, "small" and "big". "Small" worship includes doing prayers, fasting and hajj. I was a bit shocked to hear this actually. These are considered small?? And he went on and says the "big" worship is the worship of the heart, which includes sincerity, getting rid of arrogance, riak, takabbur, and to pardon every single wrongdoing of others to you. Frankly, this "worship of the heart" is the hardest part to me, which explains why it is considered "big", in that it is relatively a lot harder to do, compared to the physical fulfilment of our ibadah.

This is just a small reminder to you and me. Let's try our best to be a Mukhlis and be sincere in everything we do. =]
InshaAllah..

Wallahua'lam..