What is the criterion by which we know that something is an act of pure worship?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : The criterion is that for something to be an act of pure worship, it requires evidence.
The Shaykh : Yes, yes. Whatever a person intends to draw near to Allah with is worship.
The questioner : For example, among the greetings, sometimes we intend to draw near to Allah with them, so we perform them and strive to do so, and you find that...
The Shaykh : ...he intends to worship Allah with the wording itself. Do you mean that the greeting between people is not intended to worship Allah with the wording itself, but rather to worship Allah through the affection between him and that man?
The Shaykh : Yes, yes. Whatever a person intends to draw near to Allah with is worship.
The questioner : For example, among the greetings, sometimes we intend to draw near to Allah with them, so we perform them and strive to do so, and you find that...
The Shaykh : ...he intends to worship Allah with the wording itself. Do you mean that the greeting between people is not intended to worship Allah with the wording itself, but rather to worship Allah through the affection between him and that man?
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 2853 - 4600 ما الضابط الذي نعرف به أن هذا أمر تعبدي؟ ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.