40 Acts of Paradise

‘Abdallah Bin ‘Amr Bin ‘Āṣ said that he heard the Messenger of God (God bless him and give him peace) say, “There are forty acts, the best of which is giving food, if any are done seeking their reward and believing in their promise, God will grant them Paradise by this act.” (Bukhari).

Shaykh ‘Abdullah Bin Siddīq al-Ghumārī (d. 1993) wrote a small book enumerating these forty acts and finding all the supporting hadith for them. I took the liberty of distilling this book in the following list, finding the appropriate modern English equivalent of the Prophetic expressions so as to make these acts easy to do and incorporate in our day-to-day life. I also recorded short videos explaining them all for my local mosque. You can find the playlist to these videos here.

The 40 Acts of Paradise:

1. Feeding people in need and without remuneration

2. Removing a harmful object from the road

3. Feeding and watering animals

4. Visiting the sick

5. Befriending and visiting someone only for the sake of God

6. Belief in God and the Final Hour

7. Giving when you have little

8. Enjoying the good and forbidding the evil

9. Helping those with disabilities

10. Helping the misfortunate

11. Returning a salam greeting

12. Responding with blessings to the one who sneezes

13. Responding to an invitation

14. Following a funeral procession

15. Beginning a salam greeting

16. Giving sound advice

17. Removing harm from the mosque

18. Smiling in the face of your brother/sister

19. Guiding someone who is lost

20. Helping someone with poor eyesight

21. Forbidding the evil

22. Watering your brother’s/sister’s water bucket

23. Helping someone who is hard of hearing

24. Guiding the blind

25. Helping someone who has lost something

26. Helping someone who is weak

27. Helping someone with their means of transportation

28. Reconciling between two people in conflict

29. Speaking a good word

30. Helping someone who does not know how to communicate or does not know a particular language

31. Giving someone water who is thirsty

32. Helping someone draw water from a well with a short rope, while yours is long enough

33. Donating shoe or sandal laces to someone in need of them

34. Comforting someone who is lonely

35. Flexibility in buying and selling

36. Flexibility in matters of adjudicating cases

37. Being patient with one who is short on repaying a debt

38. Being flexible when one has the majority of a debt, but missing only a little

39. Concealing the mistakes of a believer

40. Consoling a believer’s loss