The 365 · Tazkiyah · Day 223 · Worship
Sumʿah · The Love of Being Heard About
The disease
السُّمْعَة
Sumʿah
Why it's named first
Because the Prophet ﷺ named it alongside riyāʾ: 'whoever does sumʿah, Allah will do sumʿah of him (i.e., expose him); whoever does riyāʾ, Allah will do riyāʾ of him (expose him on the Day)' (Bukhārī 6499, Muslim 2987). Sumʿah is riyāʾ's twin: where riyāʾ is performing for SIGHT, sumʿah is performing for SPEECH. The worshipper who wants others to TALK about his worship. To say 'so-and-so prays a lot.' To narrate his tahajjud to friends so they will say 'mā shāʾAllāh.' To mention his charity so others will recount it. The disease is the love of being mentioned for piety. And Allah's response in the hadith qudsi is precise: if the worshipper wanted his worship spoken about, Allah will speak about it on the Day in the most exposing way.
In the Qur'an
'They were not commanded except to worship Allah, sincere to Him in the religion (mukhliṣīna lahu al-dīn)' (al-Bayyinah 98:5). The verb mukhliṣīn covers both sumʿah and riyāʾ: sincerity is exclusive devotion to Allah without partner in either sight or speech. And: 'Do not consider those who exult in what they have done and love to be praised for what they have not done' (Āl ʿImrān 3:188): the verse names sumʿah directly (love of being praised).
In the Sunnah
Bukhārī 6499, Muslim 2987: 'whoever does sumʿah, Allah does sumʿah of him.' Ahmad: a hadith naming both sumʿah and riyāʾ as forms of khafī shirk. And: 'whoever loves that men should stand for him, let him take his seat in the Fire' (Abū Dāwūd 5229): a parallel principle. The love of being honored verbally is the same family of disease.
The cure
Refuse to narrate your own worship. Practical: 1) Establish the rule: I do not voluntarily mention my own ibadah to others; if asked, I deflect or attribute to Allah; 2) When others tell you 'I heard you do X,' do not feel inflated; recite al-ḥamdu lillāh and immediately ask Allah to keep the deed for Himself; 3) Especially in daʿwah, do not use your own ībādah as a credential; let Allah's words be the credential; 4) Use Abū Bakr's duʿā when praised: 'allāhumma lā tuʾkhidhnī bimā yaqūlūn, wa-ghfir lī mā lā yaʿlamūn'; 5) Hide what can be hidden; the easiest way to avoid sumʿah is to give the brother no opportunity to speak of your worship.
What is at stake
Sumʿah ruins the worship. On the Day, Allah will expose the worshipper's hidden motive: He will broadcast (sumʿah) the worshipper's true intention. Imagine the public exposure: the long sajdah revealed as performance for an audience that did not exist; the tahajjud revealed as story-fuel for the morning conversation; the sadaqah revealed as content for the LinkedIn post. Each is exposed before all creation. The Prophet ﷺ: 'whoever competes for the world, Allah will exhaust him in it; whoever competes for the akhirah, Allah will gather his affairs and place sufficiency in his heart' (Ibn Mājah 4105). Sumʿah is competing for the world; the cost is exhaustion in it.
A du'a for this day
Allāhumma in-nī aʿūdhu bika min al-riyāʾi wa al-sumʿah. (O Allah, I seek refuge in You from riyāʾ and sumʿah.)
A reflection to carry
Read Bukhārī 6499. Allah's response to sumʿah and riyāʾ is parallel: 'man sumʿa, sumʿa-llāhu bih; wa man rāʺ, rāʺ-llāhu bih.' Whoever does sumʿah, Allah does sumʿah of him; whoever does riyāʾ, Allah does riyāʾ of him. The exposure on the Day matches the disease in the dunya. The worshipper who wanted to be SEEN piously will be SEEN in his hidden hypocrisy. The worshipper who wanted to be SPOKEN of piously will be SPOKEN of in his hidden insincerity. Ya akhī, ya ukhtī, the cure is to refuse to be the narrator of your own worship. Do not mention your tahajjud at breakfast. Do not bring up your fasting at the office. Do not reference your sadaqah in conversations about charity. Do not hint at your Quran-memorization to impress the new community member. Each is a small invitation of speech-audience into your worship. The dīn made you the doer; do not also make yourself the speaker. Allah will speak for you on the Day in the form of accepted deeds. The dunyā speech is the trade against the akhirah speech.
Read the longer reflection
Yā Rabb, the Prophet ﷺ described the cosmic mirror. Sumʿah in the dunyā becomes sumʿah from You on the Day, but the form is reversed. The worshipper who wanted to be spoken of as pious will be spoken of as he truly was. The public conversation he sought will be granted; the content will not be what he hoped. Forgive me, ya Allāh, for the times I have invited my own worship into conversations. The casual mention of my fast during a lunch declination. The reference to my Quran-memorization in a discussion of teaching. The hint at my sadaqah when others discussed giving. Each was a small enrollment in sumʿah. Strip the habit. Make my tongue refuse to narrate my own ibadah. Make my chest immune to the lift when others praise me. Make my niyyah anchored in Your face, with no audience invited. And ya Allah, give me the discipline of hidden worship as the structural anchor: the tahajjud no one knows about, the sadaqah no one will ever see, the Quran I read alone at night, the istighfār whispered in the car. These hidden deeds, by their very hiddenness, train the niyyah of the visible ones. The believer who can do worship in pure secrecy will not need to advertise his public worship; he knows the hidden one is what is recorded. And ya Rabb, on the Day when You will speak about me, let it be the speech of a worshipper accepted, not exposed. Āmīn ya Mukhfin.
Sources: Quran, Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Abu Dawud, Ahmad, Ibn Majah, Ibn al-Qayyim, Ghazali. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
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