Expect the best from Allah

Abu Hurayrah narrated that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said:

“Allah, all Glory and Praise be to Him, has said, ‘”Whatever My servant assumes of Me, that is how I will treat him, and I am with him when he remembers Me.'”

[Reported by Muslim, from Abu Hurayrah, as mentioned in Sahih al-Jami#8138]

“So if a person only expects good from Allah, and it certain that Allah will not destroy his hopes and desires, then Allah will fulfil his expectations. On the other hand, if he is not certain of the response of Allah, and he feels that he will not be responded to, then he will be treated the way that he feels. Al-Shawkanicmmented on this hadith as follows:

‘In this hadith, Allah encourages His servants to expect the best from Him, since He will treat them accordingly to their expectations. So whoever expects good from Him will be showered with His Good, and will be shown His Beautiful Generosity… But he who is not like that will not be treated in this manner. And this is the meaning of the fact that He is with him when he remembers Him. So it is obligatory on the slave to always assume the best of Allah. And he should help himself to achieve this state by always recalling the texts (of Qur’an and Sunnah) that show the great Mercy of Allah.’

This is why the true Muslim always expects the best from Allah.

The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) states:

‘Let not any of you die except that he assumes the best from Allah’

[Reported by Muslim (#2877) and others]

Since a person does not know when he will die, the implication of the hadith is that a Muslim must always have good thoughts and assume the best about his Creator, such that, when death does overtake him, he is still intent upon this feeling.”

Ibn al-Qayyim said,

‘Whoever reflects upon this issue deeply will realise that having the best expectations from Allah is equivalent to having good deeds, and doing good from one’s soul. For only when a person expects the best from Allah will he perfom food deeds, since he will expect that Allah will reward him for his deeds and accept them. Therefore, the reason that he performed these good deeds was because of his good expectations of Allah; so the more a person betters his expectations from Allah, the more good deeds he does!’

[Al-Jawab al-Kafi, p. 23]

Taken from Du’a : The Weapon of the Believer p. 81