Imagine if you woke up tomorrow, with only the things you thanked Allah swt for yesterday. That's right. Your home, your family, the air, your security, your rights, you faculties of hearing, seeing, feeling, comprehending, touching, smelling and tasting. Our nervous system, our bone structures. Our loved ones, our family, our pets, our friends. What about our earth? Or our position in the solar system.. the orbit around the sun so perfectly and concisely. The forces of gravity, the layers protecting our earth, the water cycles, the wind cycles. Isn't it crazy how many things we would have to be thankful for? And to think for a moment that you woke up today and everything is held perfectly together and in place. Alhamdullilah! Just the thought is so scary because it makes us realize that there is so much to be grateful for each and everyday. In fact - the opposite of shukr (gratitude0 is kufr in arabic and its root word is 'ingratitude'. Its our failure to appreciate, or to acknowledge the thousands of blessings we are surrounded by on a day to day basis. Islam - submission to the will of Allah is also a lifestyle of appreciation. In this reflection, I will be sharing my thoughts on how gratitude is manifested in various acts from ibadat, to cleanliness, modesty, charity, loving and respecting our parents and how these are all various expressions of gratitude while comparing and contrasting that with their opposites such as uncleanliness, lewdness, stinginess, disrespecting our parents and denying the existence of God. Due to my limited knowledge, I can only share what I know to be grateful about but the list is so endless. There are so many things we can be grateful for that escape our limited comprehension. There are more blessings around us than we ourselves can even understand!
Ibadat/worshipping Allah swt
To worship Allah swt is to recognize and see His way in everything around us. I can list all 99 names of Allah swt right now, but to keep it brief, I will only be discussing the attribute ar-Rahman very briefly to illustrate my point.
Nothing is able to really summarize appreciation of Ar- Rahman as much as surah Rahman itself. After the attribute Ar- Rahman, the first thing mentioned is 'alamal qur'an'. He taught the Quran. That is such a huge blessing towards us and we fail to appreciate it fully again and again. The Qur'an is actually from Al lawh al Mahfuz which is the preserved tablet right below the arsh of Allah swt in the highest place in paradise. It contains knowledge of the divine that is preserved by Allah swt himself and thousands of angels protect it. Not a word can be changed by any devil or any human. It is preserved and guarded in its absolute and purest state and it is such an enormous blessing that this wisdom has been sent down to us. It provides divine guidance that after years of experience and research we find to be all authentic and true and yet mysterious still waiting to be unravelled that our human capacities have been unable to grasp during this time and age. Such a blessing to have this book with us and such an enormous honor given to us human beings by Ar Rahman. The next thing mentioned is He created humans and taught Him intelligent speech - more and more research has shown that it is our ability to communicate with one another that results is so many amazing things, like the ability to communicate our thoughts, ideas and feelings. To bounce off ideas off one another. To learn to collaborate and cooperate, to read, write, research and grow as a civilization all because He taught us intelligent speech. And the sun and the moon in their orbits. Just to acknowledge that everything is held so constant and precisely together. Imagine if everyday we had no idea if the sun was going to rise or not. What would happen to our crops, our food supplies, our ability to time ourselves, our rhythematic cycles? Or our very existence? Than the surah goes on to explain the various things on the earth for our growth and development that He placed, both in this world and in the hereafter all from the Rahma of Allah swt. To be able to see His ways and His Rahma in everything.
What this shows us is that shukr or appreciation is in the way we are able to acknowledge and appreciate the creator in seeing all that has been perfectly placed around us. In contrast to not acknowledging any of it. Imagine if Allah swt 's rahma is manifest all around us but we fail to appreciate the creator or worse - deny Him. If we didn't thank Him for it while He did so much for us and tomorrow, all of it was gone. All those manifestations of His Rahma were gone. Imagine if the period of enlightenment following the Islamic era and various enlightenments that happened after the Qur'an was revealed - never happened. Imagine if we lived like the Arabs of the Prophet (pbuh)'s time, and continued to live as an anarchy feeding our egos with no divine guidance on how we should live our lives. Imagine if women rights, and racist beliefs, and business transactions, zakah, charity and various other social structures were never built? Imagine if we were just left on the earth without the sun and moon orbiting in their perfect order? Imagine for a second if that which you denied in fact stopped existing, what a terrible state we would be in? Thus - it is important to acknowledge and appreciate the creator and worship Him, calling Him with the best of names and having faith and love for his design and His ways as they manifest all around us.
Cleanliness
In Islam, cleanliness is considered half of faith. cleanliness is also like gratitude and appreciation. Imagine if someone bought you a really nice dress. Would you let it get dirty? Would you throw it around, would you act roughly while wearing it? Our heart and body is not that different. If we value and respect ourselves, it would be so difficult for us to fall into sins that are going to degrade us or to do things that make our conscience feel guilty and filthy. If we loved our heart and valued its peace and serenity we would want to constantly purify it of negative traits like pride, anger, depression, lust, envy, greed and laziness. We would want our heart to flourish and grow and be in a state of harmony and would constantly purify it with dhikr (remembrance of God) so that it feels peace and security. If we cared about our bodies we would also do wudu or not want infections to happen inside our bodies. Cleanliness itself is an act of gratitude. It is to value and appreciate all that we are given in this world as well as to thank the owner who has bestowed various blessings upon us. Cleanliness being half of emaan is also an attitude of appreciation.
Modesty
Modesty is also a form of gratitude. It is the opposite of chasing after more and more desires. it's to lower our eyes from looking at things which are not ours - or longing for things which are not ours. It is to practice limitations instead of letting our greed and desires get the better of us.
Respecting Our Parents
This is a big one - because our parents are the ones who have spent so many of their tangible and intangible resources on us. When we were babies it was our mothers who was giving from her own self. It was her blood and supplies that were being drained from her body while the conditions of our growth and development took place. To have spent nine months in that state is spending so much of her bodily resources on us. Next, while we were children and toddlers, our parents provided us with food, shelter and other things to help us grow and develop and each parent spend from the resources that they had. What human being on earth would donate as much blood or endure as much pain as did your mother? What person spends on you over and over again, thousands of dollars throughout your life just to provide you a shelter, home, education and more. People loan us a couple of dollars and they wait for their favors to be repaid and while some don't, how much are they going to give you? Would anyone give you thousands of dollars every single year for free? Would someone cook for you without wanting payment? No human being invests in us as much as our parents invest in us. I just mentioned tangible resources but what about intangible ones? What about love, support, comfort, knowledge, guidance? There is so much our parents do for us on a day to day basis and they barely ever ask us for anything in return. It should be enough to water our eyes with gratitude for our parents and Islam teaches us that. To appreciate and respect them above all other human beings.
In conclusion, i've just listed a few ways Islam is a lifestyle of gratitude but as you may notice, the list is just so endless. From the attributes of God and the various ways those attributes manifest themselves daily which should awe us with praise of the creator. To lifestyles and behaviours such as modesty and hijab, cleanliness, and respecting our parents. If we woke up only with the thing we thanked God for yesterday, what would they be? And if you haven't already done so. Than start appreciating and thanking the creator with your every breath, and all the blessings around you. Not everyone is able to say it - but say it with full meaning - a heartful Alhamdullilah praising Allah swt for everything He does for us every single day. Both in this life, and in the hereafter. Not just in this world, but the one whose mercy is so enormous created a place called Jannah.
