Shukr – Gratitude to Allah

hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam wa rahmatullah al Ameen. We begin by praising Allah subhanho wa Taala. And asking Allah to send his peace and blessings upon the final prophet, Mohammed even Abdullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and all those who follow his way with righteousness until the last day.

Once the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he was praying, the kiambu live that 100, late at night, and he was praying very intensely, with a very powerful prayer. And so his wife, Aisha, radiallahu anha, she waited for him to finish and then she asked him a very important question.

She said, Oh prophet of Allah, Allah has already forgiven you everything and guaranteed you agenda. So why do you need to pray like this?

Very important question right? The Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he is guaranteed paradise.

Yet he spent the night in prayer.

Right? While those of us who are not guaranteed paradise, we don't do that much good deeds. So what was it? What was his reason? What is his reason for spending the night in prayer? A very important reason. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, he said, should I not be a grateful servant of Allah? Meaning I am praying to Allah, not out of fear of the hellfire. I am praying to Allah out of gratitude, sugar, gratitude for whatever he has given me. And that's the theme for today's discussion. Today inshallah, we are going to take a look at three things we are going to look at, number one, why we should be grateful to Allah subhana wa Taala. Number two, What benefits do we get

out of living a life of gratitude. And number three, how to show our gratitude to Allah subhanho wa Taala. So gratitude or in Arabic sugar means to thank someone. Right? And part of worshipping Allah, part of being a good Muslim is to be grateful to Allah subhanho wa Taala for whatever he has given us. People worship Allah for many different reasons. And all of these reasons are valid and acceptable. He has different levels of Emacs. The lowest level of Eman, the lowest reason why some people worship Allah is our fear of the hellfire. They don't want to go to hell to the worship they created. This is acceptable. There's nothing wrong with this. But this is the lowest level of

worship. higher than that is someone who wants to go to gentlemen, higher than that is someone who loves Allah so much do you are fearful of disobeying Allah of disappointing him? higher than that is someone who worships Allah purely out of love and gratitude to Allah.

No, these are the people who even if Hellfire didn't exist, they would still worship Allah, they would still stay away from sins. Why? Because they are doing it out of love and gratitude. So why why why should we be grateful to Allah Subhana that we live in a time where and in a community where our culture is one of complaining and ingratitude. Right Wherever we go, people complain, when we get together to talk people complain, you know, this has become our our way of life. So we have many people who have the best of cars, the best of houses, the best of jobs, or when you sit together to talk, DC times are bad, things are tough.

And then the only been to complain about this and complain about that complain about the racism, complaining about the crime, complain about the way Muslims are treated around the world. And what this does, it creates a very negative environment. And we get so used to complaining we forget that there are many things that we should be grateful for. Here are many things that are positive in our lives. There are many things that are actually in our favor, they are going our way.

And so many of us forget that each and every person alive today has something to be grateful to Allah for.

Gratitude comes from a place of submission and humility. It comes from knowing who you are and who allies and then being in awe of Allah because of that. Why should we be grateful to Allah number one, because he gave us existence he gave us life. Each and every one of us within us right now. We have a heart that is beating. It began beating with you inside your mother's womb. It will only stop beating when you die. You have no control over it. Only Allah controls it. Allah is blessing you with heartbeats every second of the day. Are we grateful for that? If it was not for Allah we would not exist.

grateful to Allah for even creating you for giving you a chance to experience life to live life to it you to experience the joys of being alive. Some people don't get addicted

experience. Some people pass away when they are very, very young.

But Allah has given you a chance to look through your life alone is something to be grateful for your health.

There are many people who don't have health. They spend their entire lives in chronic illness, even for them. That's a test from Allah and as a means of forgiveness for their sins. But if you have health, remember the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, there are two things that humans are most ungrateful for. What What is that? Two blessings the people don't consider important activities taken away their free time and the good help? How many of us are grateful to Allah for free time?

No, did we actually have time to relax, we actually have time to rest. There are some people who don't, there are some people who have to work two jobs go jogging eight hours a day. They don't have time to rest. If you're someone who has one job and you get to go home and relax for a few hours, that's something to be grateful to Allah for.

We should be grateful to Allah, that we live in a country where we don't have to deal with Islamophobia. We don't have to deal with people oppressing us because of our religion. I want you to think about this. The majority of non Muslim countries where Muslims are a minority, they are oppressed because of their religion.

In some countries, like in the United States of America, we find Muslims completely changing their own beliefs just to fit in.

We don't have that kind of pressure in South Africa. We can be firm upon our Islamic beliefs and no one's forcing us to change it.

No one's telling us that you know you have to modernize your religion. No, we have full freedom.

Are we grateful to Allah for that?

for freedom of religion?

Are we grateful to Allah?

For having given us knowledge of this religion? There are some places in the world where the Muslims remain in ignorance. There are some Muslim Muslims in the world who don't even know what La ilaha illAllah means. We don't even know how to recite Surah Fatiha. Allah has blessed us with a community where we have madrasahs where we have Islamic schools where we have mustards where we have knowledge of the deen

where each of us at least have the basic knowledge to worship Allah and go to gender. Are we grateful to Allah for putting us in such a community? You see, we have many things we can complain about. We can complain about the division, the disunity the sectarianism. We can complain about the crime. But today's lecture is all about one thing. Don't complain, be grateful for what we have. Now.

Why should we be grateful? What What benefit do we get out of being grateful to Allah

the first benefit you get out of for being grateful to Allah as promised in the Quran, is that Allah will give you more of whatever it is, you're being grateful for. Allah subhanho wa Taala has promised us in the Quran, Allah insha Allah as he then if you express gratitude, I will increase it for you. I will give you more of whatever you are grateful for.

And I myself have seen this so many times in my life. I have seen people who Allah has blessed with lots of things, but the complaint and the complaint and the complaint, and there's no Baraka and what they have, and those things are eventually taken away from them. On the other hand, I've seen people online given very little tool, but they make sugar for what they have. They're grateful for what they have. And over time it begins to grow and become more widely says Baraka Putney and he becomes enough for them to live a happy life.

If you want an increase in a blessing, be grateful to Allah for the blessing. Because if we are ungrateful to Allah for what he has given us, he may take it away.

The same verse, Allah says, if you are grateful, I will give you more but if you are ungrateful, my punishment is severe.

If you are ungrateful, my punishment is severe. Meaning what? Just say that we are ungrateful to Allah for giving us a country where we have freedom of religion.

Allah May punish us by taking away the freedom of religion, then what are we going to do? If you have wealth and you are ungrateful to Allah for that wealth, allow me to a welterweight or make that melt welcome, you see, but in your life, a calamity in your life? What are we going to do? So gratitude leads to increase and gratitude leads to the bounty being taken away.

So this is the first benefit of being grateful to Allah, Allah will give us more. The second benefit is that you live a life of peace and contentment. You actually experience happiness. Now, these people are in the pursuit of happiness, and the only way to find it, so the things will give more money, I'll be happy. If I get a better car. I'll be happy. I get a better wife. I'll

Be happy to move to a better country, I'll be happy. But guess what, at each stage, they find out, there's no happiness. There's happiness for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, but then it's gone. That that happiness you get from getting something new, it doesn't last, it lasts only as long as the thing is you, once it's all the happiness is gone, you want something else. So where do we get sustained happiness from sustained happiness comes from a connection with Allah subhanho wa Taala, that you wake up every morning, you look around, and you say, 100 illa, Allah has given me this 100, Allah has given me that. So you wake up happy, and you go to work happy. And that

happiness, it motivates you to work harder. And that's the third benefit of being grateful to Allah, that you will work harder, you will be motivated to work harder. And this is a something I do when when I'm counseling people who lack motivation to work between I noticed a trend amongst our people, many of the people in our communities who lack motivation to work hard, they are unaware of anything they have accomplished in the past, because they are too accustomed to thinking negatively. Meaning when you talk to such people, they'll say, you know, I tried this and it failed. And I tried that, and it failed. And I had this business and it failed, my marriage failed. And they only talk about

all the negatives in their life. And so in their mind, their whole life story is one negative story. That's the story they're telling themselves. So then you sit and talk to your buddy say, wait a minute, but when jewelry one we did this, and it was successful, and you'll be I forgot about that. I forgot I was successful at something. And so you remind them, remind them of everything they were successful of in their life. And if you haven't done this to yourself, do this. You know, if you feeling down about your life, just take a pen and paper and write down everything you have ever accomplished in your life. No matter how small it is getting your first car, getting your first job,

you know, finishing school, getting a good grade, you were winning a certificate, write it down, and you'll find the list will be far more than all these negative things that you are focusing on. So you may be thinking about all the negative things that may be a list of five negative things that happen in your life. But because you only think about those five things, you think your whole life is negative, you think your whole life is one bad story. Put those five things aside, look at the rest of your life. And here's an interesting trend in our DNA, our destiny. And this is something many of the scholars of the past have mentioned that the life of a human being Allah subhanho wa

Taala in a year, may test you two or three times. This year, some of the scholars have said that in a year, allow me sending really tough test into your life two or three times the rest of the year, your life goes fine. But here's our problem. We remember those two or three tough things, and we forget the rest of the year. So you may have 100 days in a year where everything is going your way allies blessing you and blessing you are blessing you with everything. And then one day with something terrible and tragic happens. Guess what most of us remember for the next 100 days. We remember that one day, and we forget to be grateful for the other 100 things.

So what we need to do put some perspective, okay, we had a bad day, because this is our destiny life's to test, or hamdulillah. We had 100 good days before that. We had 100 good days after that. So much things went well, even when something was going wrong, something else was going well, we just went focusing on it. This is the way we need to look at right now. When you look at life in this way. What's going to happen is you're going to be motivated to work harder. You really listen if I managed to accomplish this with the help of Allah, I can manage to accomplish this next thing with the help of Allah as well. When you see your past successes, it helps you to be motivated for

future success. Right? So focus on the good when it comes to our history, focus on the good, not the bad.

Think about this, right? If you want those people who likes to dwell over the bad things that happen to you in the past, I want you to think about what is the benefit of thinking about that.

Let's say for example, something tragic happened to you five years ago. What's the benefit of thinking about that bad incident every day of your life?

There's no benefit. If you thought about it once and extracted a lesson from it. There's benefit in that. But thinking about it every day. Are you making yourself sad? Are you making yourself depressed, you missing out and all the good things happening around you. You're not moving forward with your life you're not accomplishing anything. What good is the indwelling over one tragic event.

So instead of focusing on one thing, they went wrong in your life, you try to move past it. If you can't on your own, go for counseling, see a therapist, whatever it is, but move past it. And now focus on all the other good things that happen.

hamdulillah most of us

can see that our lives are made up of 90% good things, and 10% things that are difficult, I'll only say 10% test because even the good things are a test. Everything's a test. The good thing is a test from Allah. Are you going to use it in a way that Allah loves? Or you're going to use it in a way that's displeasing to Allah? Are you going to remember Allah, you're going to forget Allah? Are you going to be grateful for the good thing? Are you going to forget it even existed? All of this is a test. So go to easy the test. So gratitude helps us to work harder. And this is a very important principle. You know, if you have a child who's who's lacking self confidence at school, remind him

of every time he did well at something at school, and you'll see how the confidence you find that you have a friend who is lacking confidence in his job or his business, remind him of all the good things that happened to him. When he comes to work Business Studies throughout his life, it will help him to build his confidence, focus on the code, and allow her to do that. So we mentioned

three benefits. Or we can say four benefits of being grateful to Allah. The first benefit is Allah will give you more. Right? The second benefit is you'll be happy. The third is up content, happiness and contentment. They go hand in hand. They're not necessarily the same thing. But they go hand in hand. And by the way, just a word about contentment. Some of us think being content means not having goals or aspirations. That's not what contentment is. You have goals, you have aspirations you work hard, but at the end of the day, wherever you go for that month, UCL hombre de la casa Roma,

at the end of the month, after you work hard, you are content with Allah has blessed you. And then you try again and you work hard the next month. It doesn't mean you don't work hard. It doesn't mean you don't try to reach higher levels. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in this Ahava, they were always working harder, you know, when the sahaabah hamdulillah when they taken over Arabia didn't say okay, let's be contained to that. They went after the Roman in the Persian empires, right? They took it further. But Allah has given us this, you can give us that as well. Right to the user to move forward. So this is something that's very important. contentment does not mean not

having good, contentment does not mean not working hard. Rather, you can work hard and have goals and still be content at the same time. Right? contentment simply means after you work hard, whatever Allah has given you at the end of Hamdulillah, you don't complain, you say hum delita. So sugar, gratitude gives us contentment, it gives us increase, it gives us happiness, and it motivates us to work hard. The fourth benefit of contentment is mentioned in a Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when he said, How strange is the life of the believer.

Because no matter what happens to the believer, it is good for him. When something bad happens to him, he has sober and they're sober is good for him, which he won't for him. And when something good happens to him, he has sugar, he has gratitude, and that sugar is

good for him. So for the believer, whether something good happens or something bad happens, if he does what Allah wants him to do, in that case, sugar or sobre, patience or gratitude. Either way, is good for him, he's going to pile up on the on your scale on the last day. And so this means that the fourth benefit of having sugar and gratitude to Allah is that you will be rewarded for it in the afterlife. It is a source of reward. Meaning if you sit now and you think of something good in your life, and you see Alhamdulillah or Masha Allah, or anything to thank Allah for that blessing, or with a really good blessing and you fall onto the ground to make such a super sugar, you will be

rewarded by Allah for being grateful for that blessing. Allah will reward you for your gratitude. And this is why we have so many people who suffer from negative thoughts and, and always thinking negatively about their lives. I tried to teach him to do one thing. Every morning, when you wake up, make a list of things you are grateful for. And for each thing on that list, see Alhamdulillah. And if you think of something really, really powerful makes such that you can fall on the floor and thank Allah for it. So what happens now the same person who normally wakes up in the morning with a mind full of negative thoughts, he now wakes up and he makes a list of everything that's going well

and right in his life. And he starts the day full of positive energy, full of happiness, full of containment full of excitement, because he's starting off by thinking well, thinking positive, not thinking negative. Right? So you start your day with sugar, with gratitude to Allah subhanho wa Taala This is very important.

So we spoke about why we should be grateful to Allah because he has blessed us with more than we can ever imagine. Alachua County Allah says in the Quran, if you had to try counting the blessings of Allah in your life, you will never be able to do so. You simply can't from your eyesight.

If you have that to your yearning, if you have that to your house, we have that everyone's got some blessings, whether it's intelligence, whether it's good looks, whether it's money, Allah bless each person differently. But everyone has blessings. Right? Each of us have a different blessing in a different test. So look at the blessings. And make sure for that, and look at the test and make suitable for that and both become a source of reward for you. So why should we be grateful to Allah because He created us and He made us Muslims. And that's enough. That's enough reason to be grateful to Allah. Beyond that there are so many more than we can just

the second thing we looked at is, how does it benefit us? If we are grateful to Allah, it gives us these five things that I mentioned. Now for the final segment of today's discussion. I want to mention some ways in which we can show our gratitude to Allah. And I already hinted at them earlier. Right? So how do you express to allow your gratitude? Firstly, also to remind you of something I mentioned in our last discussion, which is that there are three types of worship, right, to worship Allah with your body, to worship Allah with your tongue and to worship Allah in your heart. And sugar can be done in all three ways. Firstly, to just think positive thoughts and to be grateful in

your heart for what Allah has given you. That is a good deed that is a worship in the heart, that is an internal act of worship, and You are rewarded for doing that. So how do you worship Allah with your tongue when it comes to gratitude? You see, 100 or you see Mashallah.

These a story in Soraka and it is recommended to recycle a cup every Friday, and served as a means of guidance for one Friday to the next, as mentioned in the hadith of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. in this industry, surah Allah mentions a parable of two men, one who was very wealthy, and his neighbor who wasn't blessed with as much well as the wealthy neighbor is to boast about his farms and his property and his profit and to boast about all of this. And so what did his neighbor tell him? He said, Why don't you say Masha Allah, La quwata illa Allah is a boasting about all of this Why don't you see Mashallah. Now, here's the interesting point most of us when do we say

Mashallah?

We say when somebody else has something good in their life, the Quran, Allah telling us to say Mashallah for when we have something good in our life

What does Mashallah mean?

It means that this is what our world this is my destiny. This is my quarter. You are accepting that you are wealthy, because a large majority or you are intelligent because Allah made you intelligent, or your business is successful because Allah made it successful. So there's two statements mentioned in this verse in Surah, Masha Allah, this is what Allah world and La quwata illa Billah there is no power except Allah, meaning no one can make this possible. Besides

the success I've experienced, nobody can make it possible except Allah. If you have to have the whole world, try to make you successful in your business. But Allah has not written it for you. You will not be successful.

So what is the story teaching us what why is this neighbor telling his neighbor to say Masha, Allah, Allah quwata illa Allah, he's teaching him two things. Number one, this is how you express gratitude with your tongue. You see these things, you think of something good in your life you see a hamdulillah Masha Allah, Allahu wa ala villa. You see something like this, because these are expressions of gratitude to Allah these are Victrola. These are words you are rewarded for by Allah. Right? The second thing is teaching us is the internal factor. To remember in your hearts, what ever good I have is from Allah. So this, what does this have? What effect does this have on the hearts of

people? It makes you humble.

It removes any arrogance from your heart. Because one of the biggest tests about being successful in life is arrogance. Pride gets to the heart. But if you remember my success is from Allah, you will remain humble No matter how much of this dunya Allah gives you. And so this man told his neighbor, why don't you say Masha, Allah La quwata illa. But he will continue to boast, write your story continue the neighbor continue to boast. And so this neighbor, the good one gave him a warning. He said, Listen, if you continue to boast to Allah, boast to the people about what Allah has given you, and you fail to thank Allah for what he has given you. Do you know what's going to happen? Allah is

going to take away what it has given you, and he's going to give it to me.

Allah says that's exactly what happened. That's exactly what happened. Right? If a man is boasting to another man, I'm reaching

You know, I've got better this than you admitted that and you and he's doing this and no matter what warnings have been given to him, Allah subhanho wa Taala It is his sooner if he wants to, he can swap it out.

The same person who was boasting to the other person we want to come crawling to him begging for a job. Allah can turn your destiny around just like that. We live in a time where we see many stories of wealthy people losing all their money and people who started off with nothing working their way to the top and becoming wealthy.

By Allah can change things around just like that. What the story teaches us is that when someone is ungrateful to Allah, they will allow will take away that blessing from them. And you can take it away overnight, overnight.

So going back to the main points, how do we worship Allah with the tongue with our tongues when it comes to gratitude? How do we express gratitude to our tongues? Alhamdulillah Masha Allah, La quwata illa Billah even when you're talking to people don't say I am doing very well in business. They are hamdulillah Allah has blessed me with a successful business attribute the success to Allah not to you. Right? If you are someone who's very good at a specific skill, may be you are good at teaching. say Alhamdulillah Allah has given me the gift of being a good teacher. Don't say I am a good teacher. attribute it to Allah. Right. This is the other way of showing gratitude with our tongue.

When you are talking about your success, attribute it to Allah. Allah helped me to get good grades. Allah helped me to get this job. Allah helped me to get this promotion always attribute your success to Allah.

So how do we now worship Allah physically when it comes to gratitude? internally we said our hearts must be grateful to Allah. verbally we said we must see Al Hamdulillah, Masha Allah, these kinds of statements physically What can we do?

We go back to the Hadees that we started with, what was the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam doing to show his gratitude to Allah.

He was praying Salah was trying to emulate the spring. The

first and primary way of showing gratitude to Allah is by worshiping Allah. Because if you are someone who does not worship Allah, what kind of gratitude is this?

Allah has given you everything, you can give him five minutes of Salah five times a day.

Gratitude, the primary way of showing gratitude to Allah is to fulfill His commands and to avoid what is prohibited.

Many of us when we get money, when we get wealth when we get success in this world, the first thing we forget that our follow up.

And the first thing we fall into is major sense, because we didn't have these things before.

So remember, that the primary way of showing a lot of gratitude when it comes to physical actions is to obey Him. Right? And specifically, sola. sola is one of the best ways of showing gratitude to Allah.

In the Hanafi, madhhab, they have the concept of praying to rockets of Salah to sugar,

when something good happens to you to pray two rakaat to Salah thanking Allah. In the other mazahub they have the concept of such Dasha which means as soon as something good happens to you, you fall on the ground and you make such a to Allah subhanho wa Taala. And you can think how many of us in our lives ever done these things? How many of us in our lives, if ever just reached out to Allah, out of gratitude to him, or prayed Salah out of gratitude to you know, many of us will only praise Allah because we scared of going to China. How many of us have ever done it solely out of gratitude to Allah

Al Hamdulillah. In my life, I've been blessed to meet many righteous people. And one of the qualities they all have in common is as soon as they get good news, they fall into such

because they immediately reaction before they tend the person before the phone their families before they do anything before they post about it on Facebook. First thing to do to make such an attack. How many of us have ever done that?

If you haven't, let's start reading. The next time we received some good news. Someone who you care about is getting married to a righteous person, Humphrey that makes sure you know someone who was struggling, you know or are you yourself you are struggling you finally got a good job. Make such that make sure

you pass the exam you escaped. You're going to fail. Make sense that makes you go to Allah, we must revive the sooner of falling into frustration to Allah when things go out. This is something that has been forgotten in our community. Many of us do not worship allow the shock of your own you worship him out of fear. Remember the higher level of worship is to be grateful. If you are grateful to Allah,

no matter what's happening in your life, no matter how busy you are, no matter how much money you have you

You will never stop worshipping Allah because you know that everything you have is from him. So to conclude,

you mentioned three things today. Number one is that Allah has blessed each and every one of us in different ways. And whatever he has blessed you word we have to be grateful to Allah for it. Number two, if we are grateful to Allah, He will give us more he will reward us for it in the afterlife, we will he will give us happiness and contentment and this will also motivate us to work harder. And number three, we learn today that the ways of expressing gratitude to Allah seeing Alhamdulillah seeing Mashallah praying Salah making such a shocker, these are things that we need to do one final point the other way to show gratitude to Allah is to use whatever he has given you in a way that is

pleasing to Him. So if Allah has given you money, spend your money in the part of Allah building machines building schools giving charity if Allah has blessed you with a good voice use it to teach all as Dean if Allah has blessed you with intelligent use it to solve the problems of the oma of Allah has blessed you with anything. Use it for Allah sake and Allah will reward you for that that is one of the best ways to show gratitude to Allah for what he has given us. Although God does all the hearts that are grateful to him, and he moved from Ohio to any jealousy and any enmity and any male contentment. Walk through the 100