Anas reported that the Prophet, (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) entered upon a young boy who was dying. The Prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) asked: "How are you?" The boy replied: "O Messenger of Allah, I am in-between hoping in Allah and fearing for my sins." The Prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) said: "The like of these two qualities do not unite in the heart of a servant except that Allah gives him what he hopes for and protects him from what he feared." [Hasan - Collected by at-Tirmidhee & Ibn Maajah. Authenticated by al-Albaanee in Ahkaamul-Janaa'iz (no. 2).]

POINT 2 : Deviating in Love, Hope and Fear

Concerning the statement of the Salaf:

"He who worships Allah with hope only is a Murji’ee.

He who worships Him in fear only is a Harooree [Khaarijee].

And he who worships Allah in love only is a Zindeeq [e.g. Soofees, Christians].

But he who worships Allah in fear, love and hope is a Muwahhid Mu'min [a believer upon Tawheed."

We shall take each section in turn and discuss it.

Worshipping Allaah out of Love alone is something the Christians are guilty of. This leads them not to be concerned with the correction of their actions and that they might not be accepted. Similar to them are the astray Soofees and their likes, such as the Barailawees - to whom the religion revolves around exessive and exaggerated praise of the Messenger (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) . Their is nothing wrong with loving the Messenger, rather this is an obligation. But it has to be shown and manifested in a certain way and that is by complying with his orders and limiting oneself to his sunnah, NOT by something that Allaah and His Messenger have not revealed.

The Messenger (sallallaahu alayhi wasallam) said: Do not excessively praise me like the Christians excessively praised Eesa the son of Maryam. Indeed I am a servant so call me 'Servant of Allaah and His Messenger' [Reported by Bukhaaree] (excessively praise - from the verb atraa, meaning to lavishly praise).

So you see many of them acting upon so many innovated practices that its hard to tell the difference between them and the Christians, in what they do to show their so called love of Allaah and His Messenger. You will often find that such people are also very neglectful of their rights to Allaah. So the effect of excessive love on its own is to lead the person into innovations, in belief in action and consequently into heresy. This is why the Salaf accused the one who worshipped Allaah out of love alone as being a heretic. Without fear a person will not be cautious of his actions - are they acceptable to Allaah or not?

Worshipping Allaah out of Hope alone is something that we have touched upon before in a slightly different way. When we discussed the meaning of eemaan in the first lesson - we discussed a group/sect called the Murji’ah. Someone who worships Allaah with only hope is what we call a Murjee. If you can remember back to the first lesson we mentioned how the Murji’ah claimed that actions are not a part of eemaan. That as soon as a person declares his testification of faith, his eemaan is complete and perfect and whatever he does after that will not harm him. This is wrong, because it leads people to worship due to hope only. So when you say to someone who is a Muslim by name and who does not complete his faith by acting upon the pillars and the other obligations he will respond by saying: "But Allaah is ar-Rahmaan, ar-Raheem, al-Ghafoor, at-Tawwaab" he will mention only what He knows of Allaah’s mercy thinking he will be forgiven. But along with this Allaah is severe in punishment as we have mentioned in the verses earlier. The correct understanding of hope - as Ibn al-Qayyim explains in al-Jawaab ul-Kaafee - is that hope is action itself. In other words it is the actions themselves which signify and represent hope. If you are not doing what Allaah has requested from you then you are not hoping in Allaah. This is false type of hope. Ibn al-Qayyim also explains the difference between true hope and a deceptive hope. He explains that the feeling of ‘hope’ has three components to it:

• that you love what you hope for

• that you fear not having it or getting it

• that you strive to attain it as much as you are possible.