O man! Verily you are toiling laboriously toward your Lord…That is, you are striving towards your Lord through your works with great effort, …and will encounter Him, by your effort; so look upon your effort: does it merit Paradise and proximity with Him, or Hellfire and alienation from Him?Once ʿUmāra b. Zādhān said, ‘[Abū ʿAbd Allāh] Kahmas said to me in a whisper, “O Abū Salma, I committed a sin which I have been crying over for forty years now.” I asked him, “What is that, O Abū ʿAbd Allāh?” He replied, “Once a brother of mine visited me and I bought him a grilled fish for a small coin. After he had finished eating, I got up [and went] over to the wall of my neighbour and took a piece of earth from it with which he proceeded to clean his hands. Consequently, I have been crying over that for forty years.”’ His words, Exalted is He:
