Summary

Not everything good is right for us at every moment. This piece explores Islamic principles of priorities and purposeful action, reminding us that true progress comes from directing our limited time and effort towards what matters most.


Everything Right Is Good, But Not Everything Good Is Right

 
There is a distinction I have found myself returning to repeatedly over more than twenty years of community building, mentoring, teaching and leadership:
Everything right is good, but not everything good is right.
 
It sounds simple at first, yet I have come to believe that much of the frustration people experience in their lives is connected, in one way or another, to not appreciating this distinction.
 
Most of us understand that we should avoid what is wrong. That is often the easier part of decision-making. The more difficult decisions emerge when the options before us are all, in some sense, good.
 
There are good causes to support, good books to read, good courses to study, good projects to undertake, good businesses to build, good people to marry, good opportunities to accept and good acts of worship to perform. But, we cannot do all of them. And more importantly, we are not necessarily meant to.
 
The real question, therefore, is not always whether something is good. Sometimes the more important question is whether this particular good is right for me, at this particular moment, given the responsibilities Allah has placed upon me and the direction in which my life ought to be travelling.
 
The Sunnah gives us a remarkable example of this. A man once came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ seeking permission to participate in jihād. The Prophet ﷺ asked him:
أَحَيٌّ وَالِدَاكَ؟
“Are your parents alive?”
The man replied that they were.
The Prophet ﷺ then said:
فَفِيهِمَا فَجَاهِدْ
“Then strive in their service.”
The narration is recorded by both authentic books of hadeeth: al-Bukhārī and Muslim.
Consider carefully what happened.
 
The man was not approaching the Prophet ﷺ asking permission to do something frivolous. He was not choosing between obedience and disobedience, or between something noble and something worthless. He wanted to participate in jihād, one of the great acts of devotion in Islam.
 
Yet the Prophet ﷺ asked about his circumstances. Were his parents alive?
When the answer was yes, the direction of instruction changed.
 
The lesson is not that serving one's parents is always categorically superior to every form of jihād; for Islamic law itself distinguishes circumstances, including when jihād becomes an individual obligation.
 
Rather, the incident demonstrates something much more relevant to the discussion here: the virtue of an action cannot always be separated from the circumstances of the person performing it. In this man's situation, another responsibility required his focus and effort.
 
This is where our conversations about productivity often remain too shallow. We often ask how to accomplish more. But Islamic tradition first teaches us to ask what deserves to be accomplished.

When Movement Is Mistaken for Progress

A rocking horse can move considerably without travelling anywhere... 
 
There is plenty of motion. There is effort. There may even be exhaustion. But there is no meaningful displacement.
 
Human beings can live this way too.
We can fill our calendars, attend meetings, respond to messages, enrol in courses, begin projects, pursue opportunities, consume information and finish every day genuinely tired. None of these activities is necessarily useless. Many may be beneficial.
Yet six months later, or sometimes six years later, we discover that the things that were supposed to matter most have hardly moved.
 
Our marriage has not become stronger. Our relationship with our children has not deepened. Our knowledge has increased but not become more purposeful. The business is busier but not necessarily healthier. Our community organisations are running more programmes without being certain what outcomes those programmes are meant to produce. Even our religious lives can accumulate activity while deeper deficiencies remain unattended.
We moved... But did we progress?
 
Lewis Carroll captured something surprisingly relevant to this phenomenon in Through the Looking-Glass. Alice finds herself running intensely alongside the Red Queen. After all that exertion, she looks around and discovers, to her astonishment, that they are still beneath the same tree! The Queen explains that in her world it takes all the running one can do simply to remain where one is...
It is literature, not revelation, and should remain in its proper place. But as an image of modern life, it is striking.
 
We have tools that save time and somehow experience less time than ever. We have more access to information and struggle to decide what deserves our attention. We have more opportunities and consequently find it harder to know which opportunities should be declined.
 
The problem is not always laziness!
Sometimes the problem is undirected effort.

Consider this: Allah Did Not Say “The Most in Deeds”

The Qurʾān gives us a profoundly different measure of a successful life.
 
Allah says:
﴾الَّذِي خَلَقَ الْمَوْتَ وَالْحَيَاةَ لِيَبْلُوَكُمْ أَيُّكُمْ أَحْسَنُ عَمَلًا﴿
“He is the One who created death and life in order to test which of you is best in deed.”
Sūrat al-Mulk, 67:2
 
There is something worth noticing in the Qurʾānic expression.
 
Allah says:
أَحْسَنُ عَمَلًا
“best in deed,”
not:
أَكْثَرُ عَمَلًا
“most in deeds.”
 
This is not merely a contemporary observation imposed upon the verse. The great scholar, Ibn Kathīr, commenting on it, transmits from Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān precisely this observation: “He did not say: most in deeds.”
Ibn Kathīr explains aḥsanu ʿamalan as “better in deed.”
 
Al-Saʿdī similarly explains aḥsanu ʿamalan as that which is more sincere and more correct.
 
This matters as our lives are not ultimately evaluated by volume alone. The Islamic conception of a meaningful life is not an ever-expanding catalogue of completed activities. A deed must possess sincerity, correctness and excellence. It must occupy its proper place within obedience to Allah.
This is also why the Prophetic paradigm of iḥsān (excellence) is so important.
 
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ also said:
 
«إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَتَبَ الْإِحْسَانَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ»
“Indeed, Allah has prescribed excellence in all things.”
(Recorded by Imām Muslim in his authentic compilation of Hadeeth)
 
Iḥsān moves our thinking beyond merely asking whether something was done. It directs attention towards how it was done, why it was done and whether it was done in the manner pleasing to Allah.
 
The Qurʾān similarly says:
﴾فَاسْتَبِقُوا الْخَيْرَاتِ﴿
“So compete with one another in virtuous deeds.”
(Sūrat al-Baqarah, 2:148)
 
The scholar, Al-Saʿdī explains al-khayrāt here broadly, encompassing obligatory and voluntary acts of obedience and benefit. He goes further: "competing in these virtues entails performing them, perfecting them and hastening towards them in the best manner." 
 
Of course we should not force this verse to carry an argument about modern productivity that the verse itself is not making. But its vocabulary is instructive. The Qurʾān directs human energy towards recognised avenues of virtue, obedience and excellence. It does not celebrate activity merely because it is activity.

The Companions Asked a Better Question

ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه once asked the Prophet ﷺ:
«أَيُّ الْعَمَلِ أَحَبُّ إِلَى اللَّهِ؟»
“Which deed is most beloved to Allah?”
The Prophet ﷺ answered:
«الصَّلَاةُ عَلَى وَقْتِهَا»
“Prayer at its proper time.”
Ibn Masʿūd asked, “Then which?”
The Prophet ﷺ replied:
«ثُمَّ بِرُّ الْوَالِدَيْنِ»
“Then dutifulness to parents.”
He asked again, “Then which?”
The Prophet ﷺ replied:
«الْجِهَادُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ»
“Jihād in the path of Allah.”
(Agreed upon as authentic by al-Bukhārī and Muslim).
 
There is something about the question itself that deserves attention.
Ibn Masʿūd did not merely ask, “What can I do?” He wanted to know what Allah loved most.
 
That is a very different way of organising a life... 
 
The scholars also noticed that when the Prophet ﷺ was asked on different occasions about the best deeds, his answers were not always identical.
 
The scholar and Imām Al-Nawawī discusses this phenomenon and explains that differences in such answers can arise because circumstances and people differ; what is most appropriate or pressing can change according to the situation.
 
Imām Ibn Ḥajar likewise records the scholarly explanation that differing answers concerning the best deeds may reflect differences between questioners, their needs and inclinations, or differences between times and circumstances.
 
This gives us an important foundation... 
Islam recognises a hierarchy of obligations and virtues, but applying that hierarchy to an actual human life requires understanding circumstances... 
 
There are duties that take precedence over voluntary deeds. There are individual obligations that cannot be abandoned for collective ones. There are competing benefits whose relative importance must be weighed. There are rights belonging to Allah and rights belonging to people. There are times when one avenue of service becomes more necessary than another.
 
Contemporary writers sometimes gather discussions of this kind under expressions such as fiqh al-awlawiyyāt; an understanding of priorities. The label in this contemporary usage should not simply be projected backwards onto every classical scholar. But the underlying juristic principles, weighing benefits, recognising degrees of obligation, considering circumstances and giving precedence to more pressing rights, are deeply grounded in the Islamic legal tradition.
 
In simpler language: Islam does not merely teach us to do good.
It teaches us that good must be ordered.

When Good Knowledge Isn't the Right Knowledge

Imagine a student with an important mathematics examination tomorrow.
He is badly underprepared.
That evening he spends four hours studying geography.
Has he done something inherently bad? Of course not. Geography is beneficial knowledge. Studying is commendable. He may have learned a great deal.
But something can be beneficial and still cannot be the 'right' use of a particular evening.
His problem is not that geography lacks value. His problem is that another responsibility presently has a greater claim upon his time.
This distinction appears everywhere once we learn to recognise it.
 
An excellent employment opportunity may genuinely be excellent. The salary may be higher, the organisation impressive and the career pathway attractive. Yet it may still be the wrong opportunity for a particular person if it requires sacrificing responsibilities that presently matter more, destabilising a family unnecessarily, or moving one's life steadily away from the contribution one has spent years preparing to make.
 
The mature question is therefore no longer merely, “Is this a good opportunity?”
It becomes, “Is this the right opportunity for me?”
 
The same principle becomes even clearer when we consider marriage.
A young man may meet a woman who is genuinely good. She may possess religion, character and many qualities worthy of admiration. But the fact that she is a good woman does not necessarily mean that she is the right woman for him. She may be an excellent prospective wife, but for someone else.
 
The same is true in reverse. A woman may meet a man who is sincere, responsible and of good character, yet conclude that he is not the right husband for her. That conclusion does not require her to discover some deficiency in him in order to justify it.
 
This is important because we sometimes collapse two different questions into one. We ask, “Is he a good man?” or “Is she a good woman?” when the decision before us requires another question as well: “Are we right for one another?”
 
Islam gives us foundational considerations in choosing a spouse, particularly religion and character. But within that framework there remains the question of suitability. Temperament matters. Expectations matter. Family circumstances matter. The ability to communicate and live together matters. The direction in which two people hope to build their lives matters.
 
Two people can therefore both be genuinely good while not being right for one another, and that is not a contradiction. In fact declining such a marriage does not require turning the other person into a bad person. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with them at all. They may simply be right for someone else.
 
This is precisely the distinction at the heart of the principle: everything right is good, but not everything good is right.
And once we understand it in something as personal and consequential as marriage, we begin to see how widely the principle applies.
  • A job can be a good job without being the right job for you.
  • A business opportunity can be genuinely promising without being the opportunity you should pursue.
  • A community project can be worthwhile without being the project your organisation should undertake.
  • Even beneficial knowledge can be the wrong thing to study when another responsibility presently deserves your attention.
The question, then, is not always whether goodness exists in an option. Often, goodness is obvious. The harder task is determining where that goodness belongs within the responsibilities, circumstances and direction Allah has given us.

Leadership Requires Saying No to Good Things

I have seen the same issue repeatedly in community work and leadership.
There is no shortage of worthwhile projects.
Someone wants a youth programme. Someone else wants a conference. Another person proposes a new educational initiative. There is a humanitarian project, a media opportunity, an interfaith programme, a business partnership, a fundraising campaign, a new institution that could be established.
Many of them are good ideas.
That is precisely what makes leadership difficult.
 
If the options were simply good and bad, strategy would require very little wisdom. The difficulty of leadership is that resources are finite while worthwhile possibilities are not.
Every yes consumes something: time, money, attention, organisational capacity, emotional energy or leadership bandwidth. Saying yes to one good project can therefore mean quietly saying no to another project that mattered more.
 
This is why prioritisation is not merely an efficiency technique. Properly understood, it is an expression of amānah (stewardship).
 
The leader entrusted with resources has a responsibility not merely to spend them on something beneficial, but to exercise judgement about where they can fulfil the responsibilities and purposes of the organisation most effectively.
  • A community organisation running twenty programmes is not necessarily serving its community better than one running five.
  • A business with ten initiatives is not necessarily healthier than one concentrating deeply on three.
  • A person with fifteen projects is not necessarily making more progress than someone with two.
Volume is an unreliable measure of direction.

Even Worship Must Be Placed Within Rights

Only after understanding this broader framework do I think the famous encounter between Salmān al-Fārisī and Abū al-Dardāʾ رضي الله عنهما reveals its full significance.
Abū al-Dardāʾ had immersed himself in voluntary worship to the point that other rights in his life were being neglected. Salmān intervened and told him:
«إِنَّ لِرَبِّكَ عَلَيْكَ حَقًّا، وَلِنَفْسِكَ عَلَيْكَ حَقًّا، وَلِأَهْلِكَ عَلَيْكَ حَقًّا، فَأَعْطِ كُلَّ ذِي حَقٍّ حَقَّهُ»
“Your Lord has a right over you, your own self has a right over you, and your family has a right over you, so give everyone who possesses a right their due.”
When the matter reached the Prophet ﷺ, he said:
«صَدَقَ سَلْمَانُ»
“Salmān has spoken the truth.”
(Recorded by Imām al-Bukhārī).
 
The lesson is greater than the modern language of “work-life balance.”
Salmān was correcting the ordering of a man's obligations. Even voluntary worship, unquestionably good in itself, could not justify neglecting rights Allah had placed elsewhere in his life.
 
This is perhaps one of the clearest demonstrations of why the category “good” is insufficient for mature decision-making.
A good action performed at the expense of a more pressing right can become misplaced.
And misplaced goodness can still produce harm.

More Is Not Always Better

There is another Prophetic teaching that subtly challenges our obsession with volume.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
«أَحَبُّ الْأَعْمَالِ إِلَى اللَّهِ أَدْوَمُهَا وَإِنْ قَلَّ»
“The most beloved deeds to Allah are those performed consistently, even if they are few.”
 
Imām Al-Nawawī explains that a small deed maintained consistently is better than a large amount that is eventually abandoned, because consistency sustains obedience, remembrance, awareness of Allah and sincerity.
 
Once again, the Islamic measure is more sophisticated than quantity.
 
A person may undertake an extraordinary programme of worship for seven days and collapse on the eighth. Another may establish something modest that reshapes the next twenty years of their life.
Which one has achieved more?
The numbers from the first week will not tell us.
 
This is true outside acts of worship as well. Sustainable effort directed towards something important will often accomplish more than bursts of intense activity scattered across whatever happens to capture our attention.

Direction Changes the Meaning of Movement

And this brings us to what I believe sits underneath much of the problem: vision.
You cannot meaningfully define progress without a destination.
Movement describes change.
Progress describes movement towards something.
 
Without knowing where we are trying to go, we cannot reliably distinguish between the two.
This is why people can remain extraordinarily busy while their lives remain strangely static. Their actions have become ends in themselves.
They work because they work.
They earn because earning more seems preferable to earning less.
They study because another qualification appears useful.
They accept opportunities because opportunities are difficult to decline.
They begin projects because the projects are worthwhile.
Nothing necessarily connects these decisions into a coherent direction.
 
For a Muslim, however, vision cannot begin with the self.
Our ultimate destination has already been defined.
We belong to Allah, we live under His command, and we return to Him. The supreme success of a human life is His pleasure and salvation in the Hereafter.
A personal vision therefore sits beneath that greater purpose. It asks how the particular life Allah has entrusted to me should be organised in service of that destination.
  • What responsibilities has Allah placed upon me?
  • What kind of spouse should I become?
  • What kind of parent?
  • What rights do people presently have over me?
  • What abilities has Allah given me that I am responsible for developing and deploying?
  • What should my knowledge eventually produce?
  • What should my wealth enable?
  • What contribution am I particularly equipped to make?
  • What opportunities should I pursue, and which should I have the discipline to leave for somebody else?
These questions do not require us to predict every detail of our future. Life will disrupt our plans, responsibilities will change, opportunities will appear unexpectedly, and Allah may take us along roads we never imagined.
 
Vision is not an attempt to control destiny.
It is an attempt to exercise stewardship within it.

The Harder Form of Discipline

There is a form of discipline involved in refusing what is wrong.
There is another, sometimes more difficult, form of discipline involved in refusing what is good.
The first requires moral clarity.
The second requires wisdom.
It requires knowing that we cannot read every beneficial book, pursue every worthwhile qualification, attend every gathering, support every initiative, build every project or accept every opportunity.
 
Some things must remain undone, not because they are worthless, but because something else presently has a greater right to our finite life.
This is why the principle has remained important to me through years of teaching, mentoring, community building and leadership:
Everything right is good, but not everything good is right.
 
The purpose of that statement is not to make people suspicious of goodness. Nor is it an excuse for laziness, indecision or abandoning opportunities for service.
It is a call to become more deliberate about where goodness is placed.
 
The man who approached the Prophet ﷺ wanted something noble. The Prophet ﷺ did not extinguish his desire to strive. He directed that striving towards the place where, in his circumstances, it belonged:
«فَفِيهِمَا فَجَاهِدْ»
“Then strive in their service.”
There is profound wisdom in that redirection.
 
Perhaps one of the questions we should ask ourselves more often is not simply, “What good can I do next?”
It is:
Of all the good that I could do, what does Allah most require of me now?
When that question becomes part of how we organise our worship, families, careers, businesses, studies, leadership and service, we begin to move beyond busyness.
We begin to give rights their due.
We begin to place effort where it belongs.
And, by the permission of Allah, movement begins to become progress.
 
P.S. For those eager to travel further along this path, I invite you to read my book, The Journey to Success: The Roadmap of Ikhlās, Iḥsān, and Istiqāmah. In it, I share a framework for nurturing sincerity, striving for excellence, and holding firm with consistency; qualities that define true success in this world and the next.
 
Your brother
Sajid Umar
Location: 'somewhere en route to the hereafter'
28/02/1448 (AH) - 11/08/2026

Add a Comment

Comments

No comments yet.