Intending this World or Intending the Hereafter

If you intend Allah and the abode of the Hereafter in your actions, it will come your way. However, if you intend worldly benefit, it may or may not come your way. (Allah - the Exalted – says): “Whosoever desires the quick-passing (this world), We readily grant him what We will for whom We like” (Al-Israa: 18). He did not say, “We readily grant him what he desires.” (Allah said): “We readily grant him what We will” not what he desires; “for whom We want”, not for everybody. Therefore, He limited what will readily be granted, which is what the person wanted, and to whom it will be granted. That is to say, among the people are those who will be granted their worldly desires while others will be granted only a share of it, and some will not be given anything at all.