The Quest For A Ruling
Brother what I understand is that there’s a difference of doing something of worship to please Allah and then expecting a reward from Allah, in the form of jannah for that pleasure of Allah. And doing something of worship to primarily gain something else other than pleasure of Allah. When we say someone pray Nafl Namaz for getting Jannah. it’s not like Jannah is a thing that is found in the physical world and as a means to get to Jannah you need namaz. Rather the map a Muslim has in his mind is that when he yearns for Jannah, then he gets to know that Allah will give it to me if I please and worship Allah. So now that person prays a nafl namaz -> in order to please Allah… and in heart that person is hoping from Allah that Allah rewards the person for his efforts of ibadah to please Allah, in the form of Jannah. This thing is not like the situation of a person praying namaz primarily because he saw that some uncle is giving out money to those who pray Zühr namaz. so that person prays Namaz zuhr primarily with intention to recieve money from that uncle. Here we can say he made Allah’s worship a direct means to money (Not a means to Allah’s pleasure). Here this is not good and it’s riyakari. This money is not a result of Allah’s pleasure in the sense, as I told about Jannah.