1 Corinthians 3:7 Meaning So Then Neither He Who Plants Is

Asbāb: The means God works through The tradition calls people and events asbāb, the channels a thing arrives through. Someone taught you, someone showed up at the right hour, and help came through their hands. Keeping that clear lets you thank a person warmly without turning them into the source of what grew in you.

No power and no strength except through God: The doing itself is lent Muslims repeat this phrase many times a day, following a saying of the Prophet. The point lands before any outcome, on the doing: the energy to start, the idea that came, the patience to stay with it. Someone who takes that in stops adding up their share, since even the strength to work was handed to them.

ʿUjb: Being pleased with yourself for what you did Al-Ghazali named ʿujb as one of the quiet ruins of good work. You do something well, and a small warmth settles in about yourself rather than about the good that happened. Left alone, that turns into scorekeeping over who did more and whose side deserves the thanks, and the good stops mattering to you.

Fanāʾ: The self dropping out of the account Sufis use fanāʾ for the point where your own importance stops registering. Being nothing in the tally feels less like being crushed than like being let off the hook, since nothing is left to defend. You go on working, and you stop needing the work to say something about you.

Tawakkul: Trusting God with how it turns out Al-Ghazali was firm that trust never meant folding your arms. You do your part with care, and then the result belongs to someone else. The weight of thinking the whole outcome rests on your shoulders comes off, and the work gets steadier and less frantic.