The Attitude of Gratitude

One of the main things going on in the news today, that's taking up many of our

much of our attention is the World Cup.

And one of the main stories to come out of the week or so that the World Cup has been going on, was the massive upset of Argentina about by Saudi Arabia early this week. Of course, Argentina has messy, one of the best footballers in the world. Argentina was considered to be one of the favourites to win the entire tournament. Whereas Saudi Arabia came in as the second lowest ranked theme in the entire tournament. And yet, Saudi Arabia beat Argentina earlier this week to 211 of the Muslims. On Twitter commented about this, they said this is the biggest upset for the Muslims since the Battle of feathers.

And indeed, one of the pictures that spread around social media after the game was a picture of the Saudi Arabian players after the whistle had blown, and everyone was going off the field, getting on their hands and knees, making St. Jude to Allah subhanaw taala in an expression of gratitude.

Gratitude is something that is so central to our faith. And it's something because of the Federal holiday that many of us have asked for this week. That's on our minds. And here we have a viral image of gratitude and what gratitude looks like.

In a slum gratitude is so central and so important that Allah subhanaw taala often equate the faith itself.

And the opposite of gratitude in gratitude is so vile and so reprehensible that it's often equated to rejection of Allah subhanaw taala himself. Allah subhanaw taala says the mayor federal law who will be either a beacon in Chicago Tsum mentor McHale, Allahu Shakira and check it on Alima

what would Allah subhanahu wa taala do with your punishment if you're grateful, and believe, and ever is Allah subhanho wa Taala appreciative and knowing, which basically means How could Allah possibly punish you, if you are grateful? And if you believe the two go hand in hand, they're right there next to each other, to be grateful is to believe and to believe is to be grateful.

And the opposite is COFA. Literally kuthodaw The word and Arabic it means to cover something.

And the cover something doesn't make sense unless that thing is already manifest and apparent. You can see it anywhere. But somebody who denies and rejects and is not grateful they're covering something that is obvious to everybody. The process that Allahu alayhi wa sallam said, We'll return now at the XO alpha and Nisa, you have fallen? Do you know a coulomb Billa Kalia coronella She and we according to SN raha hoon Bukhari the prophets of Allah Allah He was salam said, I was shown the hellfire, meaning the people that were going to be in the hellfire. And most of the people in hellfire were women who denied he said cooker. Now hold on pause. Nobody can misunderstand this

hadith rest I'm gonna get in trouble.

It's not a commentary, this hadith is not a commentary on who is better men or women. From a purely statistical point of view, women have to be the majority of the Hellfire because there are many more women in the world than men. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, that's going to be especially true in Alaska as a man. The closer we get to the end of days, the closer we get to the Day of Judgment, the more and more and more that women are going to outnumber men. So when he says fill Allahu Allah He was salam that he was shown the inhabitants of the Hellfire most of them were women. This is not a commentary about the genders or about the sexes. This is not a battle or

competition. He is trying to get us to understand what was the attitude that led people into the situation in the first place. And so he continues the Hadith. He says yet foreigner, he says they denied

and the people that were listening to the Hadith I said, Wait a second, yet for them Allah. He said, were they denying Allah Subhan Allah to Allah and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said no, he said, They denied what their husbands provided for them. And they denied the SN, the excellence that was done for them. Again, we have the equation of belief and gratitude, gratitude and belief and to reject one is to reject the other. To reject gratitude is to reject belief. The blessings are manifest, but someone who is engaged in cooker the literal meaning of the world is to cover them up and to act like they don't exist. Whether it's

towards people, or whether it's towards Allah subhanaw taala is the same, the province that Allahu Allah He was telling me, he said, Mala Mia scaliness Let me ask Allah, Raja Tirmidhi. Whoever isn't thankful to other people is not thankful to Allah subhana wa Tada. It means that these are transferable skills. You work on one, when you work on the other. It's like going to the gym and doing two different parts of your arm, you're going to build muscle mass here, and you're also going to help something else.

And that's why you see there's often two types of people, there's a certain type of person, and they live by this Islamic sort of ethic, where it doesn't matter if they're talking to the janitor, or if they're talking to the president. It's the same.

They see the janitor, changing the trash can mopping the floor. How're you doing? How's your day going today? Hey, thank you, I appreciate what you do. And then there's a second type of person that they only even acknowledged the president and if they go by the janitor, it's like they're part of the wall. They walked by them. Or maybe even worse than that, hey, you missed a spot. Hey, why aren't you doing this over here?

To be grateful to people is to be grateful to Allah.

And sometimes, and this happens in the sort of customer service experiences we try to act out to get what we want. We try to raise a fuss. We try to say this is ridiculous. How can you treat me this way? It's not a very grateful attitude. And we don't realize that what we're doing we're doing to try to get something that we want in the dunya but we might be undermining our ability to be grateful. While we're at it.

The key thing that Allah Subhana Allah wants us to realize is that Being grateful is not for him. Being grateful is for yourself. Allah subhanaw taala says Well, I call the Artena Look, man will Heckman and his school Lila will may Yes Will for in the mayor school Lena FC woman kappa for in the LA Hogan Ian Hamid and we have certainly given milkman wisdom and we said hey, be grateful to Allah, and whoever is grateful they're grateful for their own benefits. And whoever denies the opposite of gratitude, that indeed Allah subhanaw taala is free. He doesn't need it. And he is praiseworthy. Gratitude is a choice. It's an attitude that you choose every single second, every single minute,

every single hour of every single day. Allah subhanaw taala said a Fatah ha that mean thought the rugby Leah Balu Winnie, as score am at for woman Shaka up in MySQL enough see woman Kappa Alpha in rugby, Ronnie young Kadeem, and when saw a man saw a place before him, he said, This is a favor from my Lord, why to test me? Am I going to be grateful? Or am I going to be ungrateful and whoever is grateful? Again, he is grateful only for his own benefit. And whoever is ungrateful than Certainly Allah is free from need, and very generous.

What's one of the obstacles that holds us back from this attitude? This attitude of gratitude that Allah subhanaw taala wants us to have one of the biggest obstacles is what they call today, a scarcity mindset. What's a scarcity mindset? Scarcity Mindset means that you live in the world as if there's not enough to go around. We've got a lot of men here and women upstairs that are working, they have a job, right? You've got young kids, you've got responsibilities, you've got bills to pay, you've got things to do. And it doesn't seem like there's enough time in the day. How can I have time to be thankful to Allah? How can I find the time to pray that extra prayer to make that extra

fast to go to stop what I'm doing and go on camera, or try to go on hij? there just doesn't seem to be enough time. We got a lot of the young men and women that are back from school, over the holiday, it goes double for them. Exams are right around the corner. You've got more credits than you can handle. You've got this paper and that exam and this responsibility in that extracurricular club. How do I find times to pray at night? How do I find time to make my even my five daily prayers on time? It doesn't seem like there's enough time to go around. And when we view life that way, we get stingy. And we say You know what? I'm going to delay that to later. I'm going to figure it out

later. Right now I gotta get mine. Right now. I've got to take care of my dunya the dean will be there waiting for me later on. Allah Spano. Tata says, no, no, no, no, no. That's not the way it works. Taking the time to be grateful, is actually going to increase the time that you actually have. And it's called Baraka. It's called blessing. Allah subhanaw taala says

What is the other hot become the in Shackleton the as Eden, Nicole, what are Inca Fortum in the other OB Nisha deed and remember when your Lord proclaimed, if you're grateful, I'm going to increase you. I'm gonna give you more. But if you deny, if you're not grateful, the know that My punishment is severe, you're afraid of taking time out to be grateful. But you don't realize that being grateful is going to give you more time. Whereas not taking time to be grateful is actually going to take away your time and give you less time in a day. Not that the time is ours in the first place. The time is not ours the time belongs to Allah subhanaw taala. He said of Allah MK can compel

up to Jalna Allah Compy Hama is Colleen Emma has Kuru we have certainly established you upon this earth and made it for you there in ways for livelihood meaning we've given you everything that you could possibly need. But little are you grateful. That's everything. That's your talents, that's your skills. That's the time you have in a day the money you have in your wallet. Everything that we acquire through work or for effort, it first belongs to Allah subhanaw taala and the least that we can do for ourselves is to be grateful for it. Allah subhanaw taala says, while Allah who are logical member Tony Doherty can lead to Allah Munna che wa Jalla. Como sama will have a thought or

will have either the Allah contest guru, Allah has taken you out of the wombs of your mothers, you didn't know a thing. You came into this world as a baby, you didn't know anything. And he made you he gave you the tools so that you could educate yourself, the hearing and the vision and the intellect. So perhaps you would be grateful

of all the blessings that we have time, money, relationships, success. The greatest blessing of course, is guidance. Allah Akbar orthos had come out of Santa Fe Kuma Tula mean Komatsu, Alikum area Athena will use a key como yo Alima Coleman kita will hokhmah while you're only makan Malam Taku Nutella moon, just as we have sent among you a Messenger from among yourself reciting to you are verses purifying you teaching you the book and the Wisdom and teaching you that which you then that you did not know before. Then Allah says right after it, that's cool Rooney as Corticon was school truly what our tech fortune, so remember me, all of what I've given you, you did not have to be a

Muslim.

If Allah subhanaw taala wanted to make it so you could have been far far astray. You could have left the deen of your fathers and your ancestors. Or if you're a new Muslim, you would not have found Islam in the first place. But Allah says, Remember me and I will remember you take that time out. Express your gratitude. And Allah subhanaw taala is going to give you even more and be grateful to Me and do not deny me Allah because Allah says in the law that you fought the nurse will act in the act on a nurse layer school. Allah subhanaw taala is full of bounty abundance more than you can imagine. But most people do not show their gratitude now colloquially hada was stuck with the law he

will commonly certainly Muslim equally them Mr. Piru in the hula hula rocking

Alhamdulillah he Allah if Sony was shook Allahu Allah topi if he wasn't in early Warszawa La ilaha illallah wa Hatha hula should he color are the militia and he mashallah went on to be and never say you did that Mohammed Abu hora, who were there are you there, honey? So Allahu alayhi wa early he was happy he was when he was studying with his demon cathedra.

Allah subhanaw taala calls us through a life of gratitude and a life of thanks. And the greatest possible thanks that we could demonstrate his obedience to Him Subhan Allah.

When Allah subhanaw taala describes the month of Ramadan he says your eID Allahu econyl Useful Wallah you read will become an officer while he took me all the way to capital Allah Allah Allah Hadoken wala contest Quran, Allah subhanho wa Taala wants ease for you. He doesn't want to make it hard for you.

And He wants you to complete the period he's talking about the period of fasting and to glorify Allah subhana wa Tada for that which He has guided you to, and so that you would be grateful.

A lot of people these days, they think I'm going to be grateful when I'm older. I'm going to worship Allah

As the panel data, when I'm older, I'm going to get to that point. Or I'm the old uncle, or I'm the old Auntie in the machine with the vicar beads, and my prayer mat and all these sorts of things five times a day. I'll do it later. There's a cat. I'll do it later. Hi, John. I'm gonna, I'll do it later. We're putting off to later something. And that's very, very, very dangerous for two reasons. One reason we all know. But a second reason that not a lot of people talk about. The first reason that everybody knows is that nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. You're not guaranteed to live to later. How many people in our community have passed away at a young age, where they thought maybe that they

would get right later, that they will become pious later and later never came? That they're our they're sad. Their reckoning came earlier than they anticipated. That's something everybody knows. But the second reason is even scarier. And part of why it's scary is that nobody talks about it is that what if you're not the same person, when you get there,

you have the motivation now, to be grateful. You have the motivation and the health and the ability now to make your prayers on time. Now to go to Hajj and Umrah now to pay you as a Cath, and to do all these sorts of things, you're assuming you're going to be the same person, when you're 60 or 70 years old. Well, Allah who I mean, there are people that when they get there, they don't have the motivation anymore.

They said they were going to wait. They said they were going to delay, they said that they would get right. But you're not going to be the same person then.

And worship is like going to the gym.

It's exercise, it's muscle memory, you build your capacity, the more you do it, the more you can do.

If you sit for 10 years, or 20 years, or 30 years or 40 years, and you never go to the gym,

how's it going to be that first day back,

you will be very fortunate to walk out of there live. Worship is the exact same thing. You worship now, you're developing your capacity, you're building yourself up, you're going to be able to do more so that when you reach that status, you're old, your kids are out of the house, you don't have any responsibilities anymore, people are taking care of you. Now you've got that ability to be able to put it into practice, and take advantage of your time. But if you wait, if you leave it until then, you're going to get to the point where you're just an old man or an old woman, and you're not going to even have the ability or the desire or the inclination to do all those great things you

thought you were going to do when you get there. Gratitude is now

gratitude is now That's why Allah subhanaw taala said after the Battle of better remember how the Muslims were, they were weak. They were poor. They were sick. They were outnumbered, they had every single material disadvantage you could possibly think of

and they happen to win from Allah's help. And what does Allah say we'll call the nasolacrimal Allah who be better in well and to Mithila that sack Allah, Allah Allah contest Quran, Allah had already given you victory at the Battle of better while you were few in number than fear Allah so that you will be grateful he did not tell them to wait. He didn't tell them to wait until they were stronger or wait until they were financially stable. He didn't tell them to wait until they had more free time. Be grateful now.

Our example is the Prophet alayhi salatu salam, the best of all creation. And then the BS that Allahu alayhi wa salam Khanna you suddenly had her terima Oh 10 taffy, ha ha dama for you call you Allah.

Why are you doing this by a cool if Allah Hakuna Abu Denisha Curatola al Bukhari, the prophets that Allahu alayhi wa sallam used to pray at night until his feet would crack and bleed.

And Aisha and others asked them why are you doing this yada still Allah, you're a prophet. Your sins have been forgiven. We all know the storage of real took the little black part out of his heart and washed it when he was five. All these things we learned in Sunday school. Why are you doing this?

Then Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would reply shouldn't I be a grateful servant?