Riyāʾ al-Khafī · The Hidden Showing-Off

Yā Rabb, Your Beloved ﷺ identified the disease he feared most for us. Not the obvious shirk. The hidden one. The riyāʾ of the small audience-adjustment within an otherwise sincere worship. And he called it shirk because, in that micro-adjustment, the niyyah accepted a partner. I had been worshipping You alone, and then a brother entered the room, and my sajdah lengthened. The partner had arrived. The shirk had begun. Forgive me, ya Allāh. Forgive me for every micro-adjustment of my worship I have made because of the imagined or actual audience. The slightly longer khushuʿ when someone might see. The slightly more elegant Quran recitation when someone might hear. The slightly more generous donation when the amount might be visible. Each was a hidden partner I invited into Your worship. Strip them. Train me into the discipline of unchanging worship. Watched or unwatched, my sajdah is the same length. Watched or unwatched, my Quran is the same volume. Watched or unwatched, my sadaqah is the same amount. And ya Rabb, build me a parallel HIDDEN portfolio: the tahajjud no one will ever know about, the sadaqah delivered anonymously, the Quran read in my room at 2 AM, the istighfār whispered while driving alone. These secret deeds anchor the niyyah of the public ones; they remind my chest that I am capable of acting purely for You, without any audience present. And ya Rabb, on the Day when deeds are reviewed, do not let mine be among those rejected for hidden partners. Let them be received: pure, undivided, mukhliṣ for You alone. Make me of the mukhliṣūn You named in al-Bayyinah 98:5. Āmīn ya Aḥad.