Deeds – The Good and The Bad

Allah gives people the ability to do lots of good deeds. Some good deeds are hard to do and some are easy to do. Some of the easy good deeds are very rewarding so they can earn us huge reward without too much effort compared to other deeds which are more difficult. It would be wise to do lots of easy good deeds that are very rewarding. One of the easiest and highly rewarding good deeds one can do is to guide someone to a good action. The Prophet ﷺ said:"Whoever guides someone to a good action will be rewarded equivalent to him who practices that good action". [Muslim]

If you guide someone to do a good action then you will get the reward of the person who does it as well. For example, if you encourage someone to pray Dhur and he prays, then you get the reward of him praying Dhur. You get the reward of praying two Dhur; one from your own prayer and one because your friend prayed. What is amazing is that if you tell someone to pray and that person tells someone else to pray, then you get the reward of both praying and it continues. Imagine if you tell multiple people to come and pray Jummah then you will get the reward of them doing so.

Another example would be if you encourage someone to say Salam, then every time he says Salam, and let us say he says Salam for the next 40 or 50 years, then you will get the reward of him giving Salam for 40 to 50 years. Now, who would want to miss out earning mountains of good deeds, especially when it is very easy to do?

Furthermore, if you share a reminder on Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat or any other social media app, and the reminder inspires others to worship Allah, then you will also get a share of the huge amount of reward that springs out from the beneficial reminder. Imagine 20 people sharing something good that you upload, actually, forget about sharing, just them viewing your post will make you earn good deeds. But if they act on it then you will get mountains of good deeds.

After all my dear respected brothers and sisters, we will all die one day and we will all stand before Allah and present our deeds. Who would want to present very little good deeds to Allah? No one. But rather we should want to present huge amounts of good deeds; small deeds, big deeds, deeds done in the public and deeds done in private. Good deeds in the form of charity, posts from social media, obeying parents, smiling at others and being good to others.

Second Part

Good deeds and bad deeds will be weighed on the day of Judgement. Our objective in this life is to accumulate as many good deeds as possible and to avoid and minimise our sins as much as possible. This is what will allow us to pass the test, earn Allah’s mercy and avoid His anger. This is what will be our ticket to success in this life and Jannah in the next.

Allah tells us on multiple occasions in the Qur’an, that it is those who do good consistently who will earn Jannah and be successful.
Allah says,
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ وَعَمِلُواْ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ وَأَخۡبَتُوٓاْ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِمۡ أُوْلَٰٓئِكَ أَصۡحَٰبُ ٱلۡجَنَّةِۖ هُمۡ فِيهَا خَٰلِدُونَ
“Surely (as to) those who believe and do good and humble themselves to their Lord, these are the dwellers of the Paradise, in it they will abide”. [11:23]

Just like you get rewarded for spreading good, you also get a copy of a sin every time someone does something bad as a result of you. If you direct someone to do something wrong, you will also get a share of the sin. The Prophet ﷺ said, "No soul is wrongfully killed except that some of the burden falls upon the son of Adam, for he was the first to establish the practice of murder". [Bukhari]

Imagine that, every time someone murders someone, Qabil will also get a copy of the sin, even though he is dead. You might say why would Qabil get a copy of the sin. It is because he started this evil and others copied him. In our case, if you give someone a cigarette then you will get the sin of him smoking. If you give someone a link to something hram or if you tell them to go to place where they would do haram, then you will get a lot of sins, even if you do not do the haram thing yourself. What is even more frightening is that if you do something haram, and that haram spreads on social media or it spreads from people to people, and this continues for years on end, then you will get all those sins committed by all those people.

To conclude, we should try to do deeds that are very easy and simultaneously very rewarding. If we do something good and others copy us, then we will get the reward of everyone doing that good deed. At the same time, if we do something bad and others copy us, then we will also get a copy of all the sins.

I ask Allah to give us the tawfeeq to do good deeds and to make us role models for others. I also ask Allah to forgive us and protect us from being a bad influence on others. Ameen.