From the lesson on "Al-Targhib wa al-Tarhib," "The Book of Repentance and Asceticism: Encouraging Repentance, Hastening to It, and Following a Bad Deed with a Good One"

The Shaykh: Indeed, all praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the badness of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, none can mislead, and whom He leaves to mislead, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger, , , . As for what follows:
The author (may Allah have mercy on him) says: The eighteenth hadith: And from Mu'adh, he said: I said: O Messenger of Allah, advise me. He said: It was narrated by al-Tabarani with a good chain, except that there is a break in it between Abu Salama and Mu'adh.
This hadith does not contradict our marking it as hasan (good) despite the break in its chain mentioned by the author (may Allah have mercy on him); because we mean it is hasan for other reasons, like the previous hadith in the last lesson from the hadith of Ibn 'Umar. Here, Mu'adh (may Allah be pleased with him) asks his Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to advise him, and among his advice to him was his saying (peace be upon him): , and this is the highest rank that a servant can reach in remembering Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and watching Him, remembering Allah and watching Him such that he constantly observes that he sees Him; because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) does not miss any hidden thing on earth or in the sky. This hadith, or this part of this hadith, is famous with a more authentic chain than this in the established hadith in "Al-Sahihayn" from the hadith of Abu Hurayrah, and in "Sahih Muslim" alone from the hadith of Ibn 'Umar; that is the well-known hadith of Jibril (peace be upon him) when he came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the form of a man whom none of the Companions recognized; even though there were no signs of travel on him, for he was wearing white clothes, and he was not disheveled or dusty, but they said: none of us recognizes him either. So he combined strange, contradictory descriptions; because if he were a stranger, the signs of travel like dust and dishevelment would have appeared on him, and if he were a resident, the Companions would have recognized him; so he was a strange man.
The point is that in the hadith—and it is a long hadith we have mentioned more than once—when he (peace and blessings be upon him) asked him about ihsan (excellence in worship), he said: , this is the highest rank of the ranks of the Muslim's worship of his Lord (Mighty and Majestic). So in that hadith, the first question from that strange man, who is Jibril as we mentioned based on the end of the hadith.
He asked the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) about Islam, and Islam is acting upon Islam outwardly, but this Islam does not benefit its owner unless it is accompanied by faith (iman). And when I and others say: it does not benefit its owner unless accompanied by faith; we mean the benefit in the Hereafter; that is: that he is saved by his Islam which was accompanied by faith, so he does not benefit from Islam except when it is accompanied by faith. But if it is not accompanied by faith, does his Islam benefit him in any way? The answer: In this world, it may benefit him, and this type is considered a hypocrite (munafiq) in the language of the Shari'ah; because he displays Islam, but he conceals disbelief (kufr); because his faith was not accompanied by his Islam. So what does he benefit? That he is saved in his self and his wealth, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said in the authentic, mass-transmitted hadith: ; so this is what they benefited from, if their faith was not accompanied by their Islam, ; do you think they said it with their tongues and faith did not enter their hearts, or did they say it believing in it in their hearts? Their reckoning in that is with Allah, but as long as they have spoken the word of tawhid (the oneness of Allah), the ruling mentioned in the hadith applies to them by his saying: , so the first rank in the religion is Islam, and it may benefit its owner in this world and not benefit him in the Hereafter, while the one who benefits from his Islam in the Hereafter is when it is accompanied by the second rank mentioned in the hadith of Jibril when he said to him: What is faith? He said: and so on.