Ikhlaṣ
Definition
Ikhlas is the antidote to riya: the pure, exclusive orientation of every act of worship toward Allah alone, without any admixture of the desire for human recognition. Al-Ghazali presents ikhlas as one of the most demanding and most important virtues in the entire Ihya, because the human being naturally craves approval and recognition and because the social environment consistently rewards religious performance. Achieving genuine ikhlas requires not the elimination of the desire for approval (which is humanly impossible) but its subordination: the person of ikhlas desires approval but has made the pursuit of Allah's approval so overwhelmingly primary that human approval becomes irrelevant to the decision to act.
As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Ghazali and the scholars of his school.
Appears in
3 books in the library
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