Abu Sa'id reported God’s Messenger as saying, “If anyone is pleased with God as Lord, with Islam as religion and with Muhammad as Messenger, paradise will be assured to him.” Abu Sa'id was delighted with this and asked him to repeat it. He did so and then said, “There is also something else for which God will raise a servant in paradise a hundred degrees between each two of which there is a distance like that between heaven and earth.” He asked God's Messenger what it was and he replied, “jihad in God's path; jihad in God’s path; jihad in God’s path.”
‘Ubada b. as-Samit reported God’s Messenger as saying, “He who fights in God’s path with no intention but getting a tethering rope will have what he intended.”*
* This saying advocates the necessity of having proper motives. If all one wants is some material gain that is all he will get, for he will not deserve any eternal reward.
Abu Musa reported God’s Messenger as saying, “The gates of paradise are under the shadow of the swords.” A man with a ragged appearance got up and asked Abu Musa whether he had heard God's Messenger say that; and when he received the reply that he had, he returned to his companions, said, “I salute you,” then broke the scabbard of his sword and threw it away, then went towards the enemy with his sword and plied it till he was killed.
We went out with God’s Messenger on an expedition and when a man came upon a cave containing some water and vegetables he felt inclined to stay in it and withdraw from the world, so he asked God’s Messenger’s permission regarding that, but he replied, “I was not commissioned with Judaism, or Christianity, but with the easy Hanif religion. By Him in whose hand Muhammad's soul is, a morning or an evening expedition in God’s path is better than the world and what it contains, and for one of you to remain in the line of battle is better than his prayers for sixty years.”
