Actions Are But by Intentions: The Foundation Hadith

Of all the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), one stands at the very front of the most authentic book of hadith ever compiled. Imam al-Bukhari did not open his Sahih with a ruling about prayer, fasting, or trade. He opened it with a hadith about something no eye can see and no scale can weigh: the intention inside a person’s heart. Before a single deed is described in that great book, the reader is told how every deed will be valued.

The hadith is short, but it carries the whole religion on its back. Two men can perform the exact same act — travel the same road, spend the same money, stand in the same row of prayer — and walk away with completely different rewards, or with no reward at all. The difference is not in the limbs. It is in what the heart was aiming at when the limbs moved.

This blog explains that foundation hadith from its two most famous sources — the wording recorded at the head of Sahih al-Bukhari and the parallel narration in Sahih Muslim — and then turns to the verse of the Quran that commands the very same purity of purpose. Everything quoted below is taken from those texts, so that the hadith can speak for itself.

1. The Hadith That Opens Sahih al-Bukhari

Umar ibn al-Khattab reported that he heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) say:

“The reward of deeds depends upon the intentions and every person will get the reward according to what he has intended.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1 — Sahih)

Notice where Imam al-Bukhari placed this. His book contains thousands of narrations about every act of worship and every corner of life, yet he chose this one to be number one — the door through which every other hadith must be entered. The placement itself is a lesson: before Allah looks at the deed, He looks at the intention behind it. A deed is not weighed by its size, its difficulty, or how impressive it appears to other people. It is weighed by what the doer intended.

This is why the hadith is called a foundation. Prayer, fasting, charity, migration, study, work, kindness to family — all of them pass through this single gate. If the intention is sound, the deed has value with Allah. If the intention is rotten, the most beautiful outward act cannot rescue it.

2. Every Person Will Get Only What He Intended

The second half of the opening sentence is as searching as the first. The Prophet (ﷺ) did not say that a person will get the reward of the deed he performed; he tied the reward to the intention itself:

“every person will get the reward according to what he has intended” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1 — Sahih)

This means the reward is measured before the results are known. A man may intend a great act of charity and be prevented by poverty, illness, or death — the hadith’s principle reaches him in his intention. Another man may complete a famous act while intending only reputation — the same principle reaches him too, in the opposite direction. Allah’s reckoning begins where human observation cannot go: inside the chest.

It also means no one can borrow someone else’s intention. A deed copied from a righteous person, done merely to keep up appearances, does not carry the righteous person’s reward. Each person stands alone before Allah with exactly what he himself intended — nothing more, and nothing less.

3. The Migration Example in Bukhari’s Wording

Having stated the principle, the Prophet (ﷺ) immediately illustrated it with the most demanding act his companions knew: hijrah, emigrating from Makkah to Madinah for the sake of Islam. In Bukhari’s wording, the example is given from its sobering side:

“So whoever emigrated for worldly benefits or for a woman to marry, his emigration was for what he emigrated for.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1 — Sahih)

Consider what this means. Emigration in those days was no small step. A man left his home, his property, his tribe, and his livelihood, and crossed a hostile desert. Outwardly, the man who emigrated to marry a woman in Madinah did everything the sincere emigrant did — the same journey, the same sacrifices, the same arrival. People watching would have counted them both as emigrants. But the Prophet (ﷺ) stripped away the label and went straight to the motive: his emigration was for what he emigrated for. If he travelled for a woman, then a woman is what his journey was — in Allah’s sight, it was not hijrah at all.

The final sentence is deliberately plain, almost blunt:

“his emigration was for what he emigrated for” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1 — Sahih)

There is no extra reward smuggled in, no credit for the respectable appearance of the act. The deed is handed back to its owner exactly as he intended it — labelled with his own purpose, not with the purpose the act usually carries.

4. The Same Foundation in Sahih Muslim’s Wording

Sahih Muslim records the same hadith from Umar ibn al-Khattab with its own wording, and its phrasing brings out another shade of the meaning:

“(The value of) an action depends on the intention behind it. A man will be rewarded only for what he intended.” (Sahih Muslim 1907a — Sahih)

Here the emphasis falls on value. An action has no fixed price tag of its own; its value floats with the intention behind it. The same coin given in charity can be priceless or worthless. The same night spent in prayer can raise a man to the highest ranks or leave him with tired legs and nothing else. The act supplies the body; the intention supplies the worth.

Muslim’s narration then gives the migration example in both directions — the side Bukhari’s opening wording leaves the reader to understand:

“The emigration of one who emigrates for the sake of Allah and His Messenger (ﷺ) is for the sake of Allah and His Messenger (ﷺ)” (Sahih Muslim 1907a — Sahih)

And immediately after it, the other traveller on the same road:

“the emigration of one who emigrates for gaining a worldly advantage or for marrying a woman is for what he has emigrated” (Sahih Muslim 1907a — Sahih)

Read together, the two narrations complete one picture. The road to Madinah did not make anyone an emigrant in Allah’s sight. What made the journey hijrah was the destination of the heart, not the destination of the feet.

5. Two Men, One Road: How Intention Decides What an Act Is Worth

The migration example was chosen carefully, because hijrah was a single, identical act performed by many people at the same time. It proves that intention does not merely add a bonus to a deed or trim a little from its reward — it decides what the deed actually is.

Apply that to daily life and the hadith becomes very close to home. Two students memorise the same pages of the Quran; one seeks Allah’s pleasure, the other seeks a reputation for brilliance. Two businessmen earn the same honest profit; one intends to feed his family and give in charity, the other intends only applause. Two worshippers stand shoulder to shoulder in the same row; one is thinking of Allah, the other of who is watching. In every pair, the outward record is identical and the inward record is opposite. The foundation hadith tells us which record Allah reads.

This is also a protection against despair. A believer whose circumstances are small — whose charity is a coin, whose worship is brief, whose service to others is unnoticed — is not competing on the size of deeds. He is competing on the purity of intentions, and in that contest the poor and the unknown can outstrip the rich and the famous.

6. The Quran’s Command: Submission Made Exclusive for Him

The Quran states the same foundation as a direct command. Describing what the earlier communities — and by extension every believer — were ordered to do, Allah says:

وَمَآ أُمِرُوٓا۟ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ ٱلدِّينَ حُنَفَآءَ وَيُقِيمُوا۟ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَيُؤْتُوا۟ ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ ۚ وَذَٰلِكَ دِينُ ٱلْقَيِّمَةِ

“while they were not ordered but to worship Allah, making their submission exclusive for him with no deviation, and to establish Salāh and pay Zakāh. That is the way of the straight religion.” (Quran 98:5)

The heart of the verse is one phrase:

“making their submission exclusive for him with no deviation” (Quran 98:5)

Worship was not commanded in a mixture — part for Allah and part for people, part for Paradise and part for praise. It was commanded exclusive, with no deviation, and then the verse names the deeds that carry this exclusiveness: establishing Salah and paying Zakah. Sincerity is not presented as an optional refinement for advanced worshippers. It is the definition of the religion itself:

“That is the way of the straight religion.” (Quran 98:5)

The verse and the hadith say the same thing from two directions. The hadith tells us the reward follows the intention; the verse tells us the intention must be Allah’s alone. Sincerity as a quality of the heart is a vast subject in its own right, and we have treated it separately in our article on sincerity (ikhlas) in Islam. Here the focus is the foundation hadith itself: what it declares, and what its example proves.

7. Guarding the Intention in Ordinary Days

Because intention decides the value of deeds, the believer’s real work is often done in the few seconds before an act begins. The hadith was not revealed about emigration alone; emigration was its example. Every day offers smaller journeys of the same kind — leaving the house for work, sitting down to study, visiting a sick relative, giving something away, holding one’s tongue. Before each of them, the heart can be turned deliberately toward Allah, and an ordinary act becomes worship.

The opposite danger is just as daily. A deed begun for Allah can be slowly repainted by the desire to be seen, thanked, or praised — the very showing off that turns worship into a performance. We have written about that disease and its cure in our article on showing off (riya) in Islam. The foundation hadith is the early-warning system for it: a man will be rewarded only for what he intended, so the moment the intention shifts to people, the reward begins shifting away from Allah.

Two practical lessons follow from the texts themselves. First, renew the intention rather than admiring the deed. The Prophet’s (ﷺ) companions who heard this hadith were people of enormous deeds, yet its warning was aimed at them — if an emigrant could lose his hijrah, anyone can lose anything. Second, prefer the steady intention over the occasional grand gesture. A small deed repeated with a sound intention carries the weight this hadith promises, which is why we have also explored the most beloved deeds to Allah are the most consistent. And when a deed looks too small to matter, remember that its value was never in its size — a theme we return to in small deeds with great rewards.

8. A Foundation for the Whole Character

It is fitting that this hadith is taught at the beginning of a Muslim’s learning, because everything else in character is built on it. Honesty matters because the truthful man intends Allah’s pleasure, not a useful image. Patience matters because it is the intention holding firm under pressure. Even good manners change their nature with intention: the same smile can be a courtesy performed for people or an act of obedience to the Prophet (ﷺ) — and we have gathered the texts on that wider subject in our guide to good character in Islam.

The question the foundation hadith leaves with every reader is therefore simple, and it can be asked about any deed, at any age, in any circumstance: what am I actually after? If the honest answer is Allah and His Messenger (ﷺ), the deed — large or small, seen or unseen — is travelling in the right direction. If the honest answer is a worldly advantage, a marriage, an audience, or an applause, then the hadith has already given the verdict, in words no one can argue with: his emigration was for what he emigrated for.

Renew the intention, and the whole of life becomes worship. Neglect it, and even worship becomes worldly travel. That is why this hadith stands first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What does “actions are by intentions” mean? It means the reward and value of a deed are decided by the intention behind it, not by its outward appearance. As the Prophet (ﷺ) said in the hadith that opens Sahih al-Bukhari: “The reward of deeds depends upon the intentions and every person will get the reward according to what he has intended.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1 — Sahih)

Q2: Who narrated the hadith of intentions? Both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim narrate it on the authority of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who heard it directly from the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). Muslim’s wording opens: “(The value of) an action depends on the intention behind it.” (Sahih Muslim 1907a — Sahih)

Q3: What example did the Prophet (ﷺ) give in the hadith? He gave the example of emigration (hijrah). In Muslim’s narration, “The emigration of one who emigrates for the sake of Allah and His Messenger (ﷺ) is for the sake of Allah and His Messenger (ﷺ)”, while the one who emigrated for a worldly advantage or to marry a woman receives only what he actually emigrated for. The journey was the same; the intention decided what it was worth.

Q4: If intention is what matters, do the deeds themselves still matter? Yes. The hadith speaks of the reward of deeds — deeds must exist for intention to give them value. The Quran joins the two together, commanding worship made exclusive for Allah alongside the deeds themselves: “and to establish Salāh and pay Zakāh. That is the way of the straight religion.” (Quran 98:5)

Q5: What does the Quran say about worshipping Allah with a sincere intention? Allah says that the earlier communities “were not ordered but to worship Allah, making their submission exclusive for him with no deviation” (Quran 98:5). Submission must be Allah’s alone, without deviation toward people or praise — exactly the foundation the hadith of intentions lays down.