Being Thankful to Allah
Expressing gratitude to Allah frees the heart from greed, jealousy and envy. When we are thankful to Allah we remain mindful of Him and His continuous mercy towards us. Giving due thanks to Allah earns a person His love and draws one closer to Him. The fact that Allah has guided us to Islam itself should be a source of continual praise. We are constantly focused on the things we don't have, instead of being grateful to Allah for the things we do have. All favours in this world are means by which Allah puts men to the test. A person of conscience recognizes that all the blessings by which he\she is surrounded with would not exist and that he could never attain unless Allah willed. Gratefulness to Allah is one of the concepts mostly emphasized in the Quran.
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AllahSWT in the following Quranic verses states: "Surely we have shown him the way, he may be thankful or unthankful." (76:3)
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“If you tried to number Allah's blessings, you could never count them. Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful. (16:18)
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“Therefore remember Me, I will remember you, And be thankful to Me, and do not be ungrateful to Me." (2:152)
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“... Allah shows favour to mankind but most of them are not thankful. (10:60)
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“And when your Lord announced: If you are grateful, I will certainly give you increase, but if you are ungrateful, My punishment is severe.” (14:7)
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Prophet PBUH said: "Allah is pleased with His slave who says: `Al-Hamdulillah (praise be to Allah)' when he takes a morsel of food and drinks a draught of water.''
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Prophet PBUH used to stand in salah(Namaz) until both his feet swelled. He was asked why he offered such an unbearable salah? He PBUH said, "Should I not be a thankful slave?" [Bukhari]
Some people wait for special occasions to render their thanks to Allah. Settlement of a major problem, or recovering from a serious sickness are usually the times we express the inner gratefulness to Allah. It sure is best to do so, however, we should not limit our gratitude only on those occasions. If we reflect on ourselves for a moment, we would instantly comprehend that we are surrounded with infinite favours. Our life, good health, wisdom, wealth, the air we bread, the food we eat, the water we drink, family/children and in brief everything that makes life possible and all those things that we think we posses on our own are actually blessings granted by Allah. We must also recognize that what we do not have but wish to have is also from Allah. He knows what is best for His servants. Let us be among those Muslims that keep their tongues wet with Allah’s remembrance and their hearts soft with His praise. May Allah fill our hearts with the reality of thankfulness to Him accompanied by the words and actions that flow from it – Ameen.