Nawawi Hadith 37: The Ledger of Mercy

Part One: How Allah Keeps Your Record

Brothers,

Today’s khutbah is based on the 37th hadith in Imam Nawawi’s 40 Hadith, a Hadith Qudsi, meaning the Prophet ﷺ is relating words spoken directly by Allah:

On the authority of Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both), from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, regarding what he related from his Lord, Blessed and Exalted is He: Allah has written down the good deeds and the bad deeds, then explained it: whoever intends to perform a good deed but does not perform it, Allah writes it down with Himself as a complete good deed. But if he intends it and performs it, Allah writes it down with Himself as ten good deeds, up to seven hundred times, or many times more. But if someone intends to perform a bad deed and does not actually perform it, Allah writes it down with Himself as a complete good deed. But if he intends it and performs it, Allah writes it down as one bad deed. (Bukhari & Muslim)

Ibn Abbas, the great scholar among the companions, narrated this from the Prophet ﷺ, and both Bukhari and Muslim recorded it in their authentic collections. Stop and consider what this hadith is telling you before we go further: this is a description of how the angels write in your book right now, at this very moment, as you sit here.

Part 1: The Good Deed Merely Intended

The first case: you intend to do good, a act of charity, a prayer at night, forgiving someone, but circumstances prevent you from carrying it out. Allah still writes it as a complete good deed.

Indeed, Allah never wrongs ˹anyone˺ even by an atom's weight; and if there is a good deed, He will multiply it and give a great reward on His own. (An-Nisaa, 4:40)

This alone should change how you think about every good intention that crosses your heart. The plan you made to check on a struggling brother, cut short because you were called elsewhere. The charity you set aside, delayed because the moment did not present itself. None of it is lost, so long as the intention was sincere and real, not merely a passing thought you never meant to act on.

Part 2: The Good Deed Performed

When the intention is followed by the deed itself, the reward is no longer one for one. It multiplies: ten times, up to seven hundred times, or beyond that at Allah’s discretion.

Whoever comes with a good deed will have ten times its worth, and whoever comes with an evil deed will only be repaid with its equivalent, and none will be wronged. (Al-An'aam, 6:160)

Notice the asymmetry built into the very structure of the ledger. Good is never repaid at parity. It always exceeds what was given. This is not how any human accounting system works. No employer pays you ten times your labor. No court multiplies your reward for good behavior tenfold. This is a mercy unique to Allah, built into the fabric of how deeds are recorded.

Part 3: The Bad Deed Merely Intended

Now the hadith turns to the opposite case, and here the mercy becomes almost impossible to comprehend. A person intends to sin, plans it, considers it, even wants it, but does not go through with it. Allah writes it as a complete good deed.

This is not describing someone who never had the thought. It is describing someone who had the thought, dwelt on it, and still chose, for Allah’s sake, to turn back. That turning back, that restraint at the very edge of sin, is rewarded as an act of worship in its own right.

But as for the one who feared standing before their Lord and restrained themselves from ˹evil˺ desires, Paradise will certainly be ˹their˺ home. (An-Naazi'aat, 79:40-41)

This is the believer’s daily jihad: the moment of temptation, the pull of the nafs, and the choice, made silently and privately, to walk away. That silent choice is worth a full good deed in Allah’s ledger.

Part 4: The Bad Deed Performed

Only now, at the final stage, after the intention has been chosen and acted upon, does the ledger record a single bad deed. Not ten. Not multiplied. One.

The reward of an evil deed is its equivalent. But whoever pardons and makes reconciliation, his reward is with Allah. Surely He does not like the wrongdoers. (Ash-Shura, 42:40)

Even at this final point, the mercy has not disappeared. A single sin is met with a single entry, never multiplied, never compounded, always open to forgiveness through repentance. Compare this to how harshly people often judge each other for a single mistake, while Allah, who has every right to judge harshly, chooses restraint even in recording our worst moments.

Part 5: What This Hadith Reveals About Allah

Taken as a whole, this hadith reveals four separate acts of mercy stacked on top of one another: mercy in rewarding intended good even when unperformed, mercy in multiplying good that is performed, mercy in rewarding restraint from evil as if it were a good deed, and mercy in recording only what was actually done when evil is performed, without exaggeration.

Say, 'O My servants who have transgressed against themselves! Do not lose hope in Allah's mercy, for Allah certainly forgives all sins. He is indeed the All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.' (Az-Zumar, 39:53)

Leaving an action for the sake of people is showing off, and doing an action for the sake of people is associating partners with Allah. Sincerity is when Allah frees you from both. (Al-Fudayl ibn Iyad)

This hadith is, at its core, a call to sincerity. Every clause depends on intention. The one who intends good is rewarded even without the deed. The one who intends evil but restrains himself for Allah’s sake is rewarded as if he had done good. Sincerity is the hinge on which this entire ledger turns.

Part 6: A Mercy No Human System Offers

Compare this ledger to any system of justice devised by people. A courtroom does not reward you for intending to do good and failing to act on it. A prison record does not erase itself because you resisted a temptation nobody else witnessed. Human systems can only judge what is visible, what is proven, what is documented. Allah’s ledger reaches into the intention itself, rewarding what no one else could ever see or verify.

To Allah belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Whether you disclose what is in your hearts or conceal it, Allah will call you to account for it. He forgives whoever He wills, and punishes whoever He wills. And Allah is Most Capable of everything. (Al-Baqara, 2:284)

This verse initially frightened the companions when it was revealed, until Allah clarified through later verses and through this very hadith that accountability for the heart’s contents is wrapped in mercy, not just severity. The same God who knows every private thought is the God who rewards the private good intention and forgives the private temptation you silently overcame.

This hadith is one of the clearest proofs of Allah’s names ar-Rahman and ar-Rahim, the Entirely Merciful and the Especially Merciful. It is not merely that Allah forgives when asked. It is that His system of recording deeds is engineered, from the very first entry, to favor the servant over the strict letter of the law.

Part Two: Filling Your Ledger From Where You Sit

Brothers,

This hadith is, in many ways, the most hopeful hadith in this entire collection for a man in your position, because it describes a system where good multiplies and restraint counts as worship, and where a single mistake is never magnified beyond what it actually was.

Every Good Intention Here Counts

You may plan to memorize a surah, to make du’a for your family, to check on a brother who is struggling, to give away part of what little you have, and then find your day interrupted, your circumstances changed, the opportunity gone before you could act. This hadith tells you that intention is not wasted. If it was sincere, it is already written as a complete good deed.

Restraint Here Is Worship

There is no environment more designed to test restraint than this one. Provocation is constant. Anger is easy to justify. Old habits call to you in idle hours. Every time you feel the pull toward an old sin, an old response, an old way of settling a dispute, and you choose instead to hold back for Allah’s sake, that restraint is written as a good deed. You are not wasting your time here resisting temptation. You are filling your ledger.

One Mistake Does Not Define You

Some of you carry the weight of a single act that brought you here, and you have let that one act define your entire self-image. This hadith teaches you something different: even a performed sin is recorded exactly as it was, one entry, never inflated, always open to erasure through sincere repentance. You are not the worst thing you have done. You are what you do next.

Turn Every Day Into Deposits

Structure your day around this ledger. Wake with the intention to do good before you have even done anything. Speak a kind word. Make du’a for someone by name. Read a page of Quran. Hold your tongue when provoked. Each of these, sincerely intended and carried out, becomes ten, or seven hundred, or more, in a record that outlasts every sentence and every wall around you.

When Your Sin Feels Too Big

Some of you carry guilt over things done years ago that you replay in your mind as if they are still growing larger with every passing day. This hadith corrects that distortion directly. A sin performed is written exactly as one entry, not compounded by your anxiety about it, not multiplied by how often you remember it. Your continual regret does not add to the entry in the ledger. What changes the entry is repentance, and repentance is available to you today exactly as it was available the day after the sin itself.

Do not let shaytan convince you that your case is somehow beyond this mercy. The hadith makes no exception for the severity of the deed. It describes a general principle: intended good multiplied without limit, restrained evil rewarded as good, performed evil recorded once and only once, always open to erasure. Whatever weighs on you tonight, bring it to Allah honestly, and let this hadith remind you what kind of ledger you are actually standing before.

O Allah, accept our sincere intentions even when we are unable to act on them.

O Allah, multiply our good deeds beyond what we could ever deserve.

O Allah, count our restraint from sin as an act of worship in Your sight.

O Allah, do not let a single mistake define who we are before You or before ourselves.

O Allah, purify our intentions so that everything we do is for Your sake alone.

O Allah, fill our record with good in every hour we spend in this place.

O Allah, forgive the sins we have already written into our ledger, and erase them with Your mercy.

O Allah, make us people who are always intending good, so that we are always being rewarded for it.