Thankfulness

Praise be to Allah for the blessing of Islam. It is blessing enough. Truly the mere fact of being a Muslim is in itself a gift beyond price. To be able to remember and invoke the Lord of existence when such a large percentage of humanity is floundering about in the pitch darkness of shirk and unbelief is already in itself a great victory. Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, may Allah cover him with mercy, used to say, "In this time of ours, if a man goes to sleep having prayed his five prayers for Allah, he has won."

Shaykh Ibn 'Ata'llah says in his Hikam, "It is enough reward for an action that He considered you worthy of performing it." So the sheer fact of being able to say, La ilaha illa'llah Muhammadun Rasulullah with sincerity and to act according to it - the great gift of guidance - is, on its own, a treasure beyond estimation; and if we add to it our existence itself, and the generous provision with which it is sustained, and the blessing of our families and companions, and the overwhelming beauty of the world and universe which we inhabit, and all the innumerable other blessings with which our lives are unceasingly filled minute by minute, we can only repeat the ayat in Allah's Book:

If you try to count up the number of the blessings of Allah, you will never be able to calculate it.

There is only one course open to us and that is to give thanks to Allah for them, even though that thanks itself is a further blessing, for as Allah Himself says,

If you are thankful, I will give you increase.

So our giving thanks is itself a means to greater reward.

The question is how can we possibly thank Allah for all this. The people of knowledge have said that thankfulness should be expressed in three ways: with the heart, with the tongue and with the limbs.

Thankfulness of the heart consists in actually being consciously aware of the immeasurable gifts and blessings of Allah and in attributing them to Him and no one else. It lies in understanding that existence in all its varied manifestations is a continuous outpouring and overflowing from a compassionate and generous Creator. It is understanding the sixth pillar of Iman, Acknowledgement of the Decree, both its good and its bad, and understanding that, in reality, even its bad is a blessing. The Prophet, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, said, "How marvellous is the affair of the mu'min! If good comes to him, he is thankful and Allah gives him increase and if bad comes to him he has sabr, acts with patience and fortitude and steadfastness, and Allah rewards him for that." And what is the reward of patience? The companionship of Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala Himself, for Allah says: "Allah is with the steadfast."

And what could possibly be better than the companionship of Allah? ...

This being understood, it is clear that thankfulness, when its reality exists in the heart, must inevitably be expressed outwardly in the two ways mentioned previously, thankfulness of the tongue and thankfulness of the limbs.

It is with our tongues that we give clear expression to what is in our hearts, and genuine thankfulness to Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala will automatically appear on our tongues. Its first expression is to directly thank Allah for His gifts to us - the gift of food, the gift of good health, all the blessings of life we daily receive. Our response to these things will be to directly thank the One to whom we owe them and the words, al-hamdu lillah wa shukru lillah will never be far from our tongues. But thanks with the tongue goes beyond this simple acknowledgement of blessing.

Thankfulness brings with it the desire to please the One from whom a gift has come and so part of thanking Allah with our tongues is to use them in a way that we know is pleasing to Him, such as learning and recitation of His own words in the Qur'an and much dhikrullah. Connected with this is the avoidance of those types of speech that are displeasing to Him such as profanities and idle gossip. A further aspect of thankfulness is the desire to tell others about the qualities and generosity of your benefactor and so the thankful tongue will be eager to talk about Allah and to teach others all it knows about Allah and also about His Messenger, for it is only through the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that we have access to Allah and knowledge and experience of His qualities and attributes.

The essence of thankfulness of the limbs is in the example of the Prophet, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, who, upon being asked why he stood at night in prayer so that his feet became swollen, when all his past and future wrong actions had been forgiveness, replied, "Should I not be a thankful slave?" It is clear from this that thankfulness entails wearing out the body in the service of and submission to Allah. In practical terms this means first and foremost obedience to all the commands of Allah and avoidance of what He has prohibited and following the Sunna of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and treading in the footsteps of his Companions, may Allah be pleased with all of them. They all wore themselves out in their scrupulous taking on of Allah's deen as its parameters become clear to them and in their implacable struggle to see it established in the world.

I ask Allah ta'ala to fill our hearts with the reality of thankfulness to Him accompanied by the words and actions that flow from it.

O Allah assist us in remembering You and thanking You and worshipping You in the best way!

...excerpts from Thankfulness, Abdalhaqq Bewley