‘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:
- Feeding people in need and without remuneration
- Removing a harmful object from the road
- Feeding and watering animals
- Visiting the sick
- Befriending and visiting someone only for the sake of God
- Belief in God and the Final Hour
- Giving when you have little
- Enjoying the good and forbidding the evil
- Helping those with disabilities
- Heling the misfortunate
- Returning a salam greeting
- Responding with blessings to the one who sneezes
- Responding to an invitation
- Following a funeral procession
- Beginning a salam greeting
- Giving sound advice
- Removing harm from the mosque
- Smiling in the face of your brother/sister
- Guiding someone who is lost
- Helping someone with poor eyesight
- Forbidding the evil
- Watering your brother’s/sister’s water bucket
- Helping someone who is hard of hearing
- Guiding the blind
- Helping someone who has lost something
- Helping someone who is weak
- Helping someone with their means of transportation
- Reconciling between two people in conflict
- Speaking a good word
- Helping someone who does not know how to communicate or does not know a particular language
- Giving someone water who is thirsty
- Helping someone draw water from a well with a short rope, while yours is long enough
- Donating shoe or sandal laces to someone in need of them
- Comforting someone who is lonely
- Flexibility in buying and selling
- Flexibility in matters of adjudicating cases
- Being patient with one who is short on repaying a debt
- Being flexible when one has the majority of a debt, but missing only a little
- Concealing the mistakes of a believer
- Consoling a believer’s loss