Lesson 5 of 6 · What feeds it, and what to stop adding
Three. Certainty seeking dressed as worship
The third is subtle, and it stings to name. Sometimes the acts themselves get quietly recruited.
Istikharah asked over and over until a feeling arrives. Wudu repeated a fourth time. A surah restarted because the tajwid was not perfect. The intention said aloud until it finally sounds sincere.
The act is good. The engine underneath has been swapped out. The report below is about two people doing an identical outward act with different engines under it, and it is offered here as a way of noticing, not as a ruling that anything you have done was invalid. That is not this platform's judgement to make.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Two people doing an identical outward act with different engines under it. Offered as a way of noticing what your own repeating is running on, and not as a ruling that anything you have done was invalid.
It has been narrated on the authority of Umar b. al-Khattab that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said:(The value of) an action depends on the intention behind it. A man will be rewarded only for what he intended. 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) ; and the emigration of one who emigrates for gaining a worldly advantage or for marrying a woman is for what he has emigrated
Sahih Muslim 1907graded sound, sahihaynthe Arabic and its grading