Explanation of his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): “O My servants, it is only your deeds that I record for you, and then I give you them in full. So whoever finds good, let him praise Allah, and whoever finds other than that, let him not blame anyone but himself”

The Shaykh : This hadith, or rather the conclusion of this hadith, in reality links a person’s happiness and misery to his deeds. It says: “I record them for you, so whoever finds good in his deeds, let him praise Allah (Mighty and Majestic) who guided him to this good. And if he finds other than that, meaning something that is evil, let him not blame anyone but himself.” “Let him not blame anyone but himself” is a clear restriction in terms of Arabic expression, meaning he does not blame the divine decree, for example. He does not say, “Allah wrote this for me: happiness, misery, wretchedness, poverty, and so on.” If he finds something in his deeds that he does not like because it does not please Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), whom does he direct the blame to? On whom does he direct the blame? On himself. Because, as the Exalted said: [Al Imran: 182]. Therefore, regarding a person’s happiness and misery, it is not permissible for the Muslim to look at the divine decree and destiny in this matter, because the divine decree and destiny are among the affairs of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). As for our happiness and misery, all of that returns to our deeds. And for that reason, the Exalted said:
Therefore, deeds are the cause of happiness and the cause of misery. And for that reason, the Exalted said, as we mentioned in a previous lesson: [An-Nahl: 32], [Az-Zukhruf: 72].
Here there is a hadith that many people imagine contradicts these two verses, which indicate that entering Paradise is only by righteous deeds, and that happiness is by righteous deeds, and its opposite, misery, is by evil deeds. The hadith I am referring to is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): They said, “And you, O Messenger of Allah?” It appears to some people that this hadith contradicts the two previous verses, because they explicitly state that entering Paradise is by deeds, whereas this hadith explicitly states that none of us enters Paradise by his deed. How is this? Even the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) does not enter Paradise by his deed. The reconciliation between the verse, or the two verses, and this hadith is to know a scientific expression by some of the precise scholars. This scientific expression is that they called the ba in the verse the ba of causality, and they called the ba in the Prophetic hadith the ba of price. By observing the difference between the two bas, the difficulty is resolved. To clarify this: “Enter Paradise because of your deeds” is the meaning of the verse. “None of you enters Paradise by his deed” means by the price of his deed. The result is that your deeds are not suitable as a price for entering Paradise. The meaning of the hadith is that your deeds are not suitable as a price for entering Paradise, but your deeds are a cause for entering Paradise. To approximate this: if a healthy young man has a very large garden and announces that whoever wants to enter this garden, meaning the orchard, and eat from whatever fruits are in it, two of every kind, let him pay a penny and enjoy entering the garden and staying in it as long as he wishes. Would this penny be the price of entering the garden? No. But the owner of the garden... the cause that justifies people entering the garden is this single penny. This is the meaning of the scholars’ statement that the ba in the verse is the ba of causality and the ba in the hadith is the ba of price. Based on the ba of causality, he said, “Enter Paradise,” and based on the ba of price, he said: This detail is clear and evident: the ba of price. And there is a second meaning by which the verse and the hadith are also reconciled.
The second meaning is the one mentioned by most of the commentators of the hadith: meaning that were it not for the favor of Allah and His mercy, your righteous deeds that caused you to enter Paradise would not have been. This is another interpretation in the way of reconciling the verse and the hadith. Allah says: [An-Nahl: 53]. And what greater blessing is there than a servant’s faith in his Lord and his obedience to Him? There is no doubt. If Allah says: And among the greatest blessings from Allah upon His servants is their righteous deeds by which they enter Paradise. Therefore, entering Paradise was originally due to the favor of Allah and His mercy for His servants. For that reason, no one should be hasty to say that the hadith contradicts the verse, absolutely not. The hadith never contradicts the verse, absolutely not; rather, it brings something new and something additional to what the verse contained. As you see here, the verse established that entering Paradise is by righteous deeds, and the purpose of that is to refute determinism. The purpose of the verse is to refute those who rely on what Allah has decreed in the past regarding happiness or misery. One might say, “These are two matters, there is no third: either happiness or misery. Since happiness is already determined and misery is already determined, why do we work? We rely on the decree.” So this verse comes among the many texts to refute this false reliance on the decree regarding happiness or misery, and it says: Therefore, righteous deeds are the cause of entering Paradise. So whoever wants to enter Paradise must bring this cause. If a person believes in this verse first and understands its meaning second, his reliance on the decree and destiny regarding happiness or misery is refuted. Because if he wants to enter Paradise, he must present the cause to which Allah linked entering Paradise in this verse. This is the purpose of the noble verse which states that entering Paradise is by righteous deeds.
As for the purpose of the hadith, it is something else. The purpose of the hadith which says: is to direct the servant’s attention to another reality, which is different from the first reality. The first reality states that righteous deeds are necessary for entering Paradise. Therefore, there is no reliance on what has been written for a person regarding happiness or misery. Because if happiness was written for him, the happiness intended is righteous deeds. And for that reason, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: If he is among the people of happiness, he will do the deeds of the people of happiness. And if he is among the people of misery, he will do the deeds of the people of misery. If a person does the deeds of the people of misery, he knows that he will not attain Paradise, because Paradise has a cause for entering it, which is righteous deeds. This is the reality that the Qur’an spoke about, and it is sufficient and healing from this aspect, the aspect of refuting reliance on the decree and destiny.
As for the hadith, it addresses the other issue, a completely independent and separate issue from the first one. The hadith draws attention to the fact that this righteous deed by which you will enter Paradise, if it is decreed for you, is from the grace of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), so do not be deluded by yourself. "Do not say, 'I and I'" — that I am the one who works, I am the one who believes, and I am the one who did it. For, as the Exalted said: