Today, we share a beautiful scholarly lecture on how to be grateful. But before we share the video, let us take a self-appraisal: Are we grateful or ungrateful? While the reasons of being in either of the two states, as we shall enumerate in the post, a simple litmus test shows us in which boat do we sail and that is how many times we say: Alhamdulillah (ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ, al-Ḥamdu lillāh - an Arabic phrase meaning "praise be to God", or simple "thank God").
Well, in most cases, we would find that whether we confess or not, we are generally ungrateful. Instead of acknowledging what we have, we are mostly worried about what we do not have. We are always comparing our state with others and lamenting look how rich, affluent, well dressed a particular man is. How the other person has a big car and a house that I don't have. In fact, it is the greed that resides in ourselves, something that develops over a period of time since our childhood when we did not have much. Or even if we had much, we still envied others in our schools or neighborhood who had better cellphones, better glittering cars and expensive watches etc.
People who are ungrateful tend to be characterized by an excessive sense of self-importance, arrogance, vanity, and an unquenchable need for admiration and approval. Narcissists reject the ties that bind people into relationships of reciprocity. They expect special favors and feel no need to pay back or pay forward.
And while being self-possessive, we seldom compare others with us. That is the mood point. There are billions of people around the world who do not have what we have. We see people suffer from hunger, shattered by wars and natural calamities, living in make shift shelters in ghettos. This all happens and we see it while we are better placed than them. But instead of feeling the pain and suffering of others and thanking what we have, we still long for more to be better than those who are better than us.
This is the state of ungratefulness and ingratitude, which is known as (Arabic) کُفر النّعمة, kufr al-niʿma), that is not acknowledging the Divine blessings. This is among great sins in Islam. It refers to abusing the blessings and is against being grateful for the blessings. In the Qur'an and hadiths, ingratitude is criticized and considered as a type of disbelief.
And when we are ungrateful, we fail to concentrate on the good aspects of our life, leaving us resentful and even angry. We tend to find what is amiss in our lives. And this state of ingratitude and ungratefulness tend to give us heartburn and cause us to be explosive in our attitudes.
We never care what God has given us. We instead care what God has not given us. Allah says in Qur'an:
“And He has given you whatever you have asked Him; and if you count Allah's blessings, you are unable to number them. Verily, man is very unjust, very ungrateful.” “And if you count Allah's blessings, you are unable to number them.
If we start to take stock of what we have as compared to what people do not have, we will become grateful to God for having made us better than others. And we must make an endeavour to make the lives of others better by giving out whatever is extra to our needs. That is how Islam teaches us to be humble and grateful rather than arrogant and proud for being better than others.
This is just the premise to the very informative lecture by renowned Muslim scholar Nauman Ali Khan which is being shared as under:
Nouman Ali Khan, born to a Pakistani family, is an American Muslim speaker and Arabic instructor who founded the Bayyinah Institute for Arabic and Qur’anic Studies, after serving as an instructor of Arabic at Nassau Community College. He has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan.
وَمَا عَلَيۡنَاۤ اِلَّا الۡبَلٰغُ الۡمُبِيۡنُ
(36:17) and our duty is no more than to clearly convey the Message.”
That is our duty to convey only to you the message that Allah has entrusted us with. Then it is for you to accept it or reject it. We have not been made responsible for making you accept it forcibly, and if you do not accept it, we shall not be seized in consequence of your disbelief, you will yourselves be answerable for your actions on Day of Resurrection.
May Allāh (سبحانه و تعالى) help us understand Qur'ān and help us to act upon the commandments of Allah contained therein. May Allah help us to be like the ones He loves and let our lives be lived helping others and not making others' lives miserable or unlivable. May all our wrong doings, whether intentional or unintentional, be forgiven before the angel of death knocks on our door.
May Allah forgive me if my posts ever imply a piety far greater than I possess. I am most in need of guidance.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the video above are those of the scholar concerned. We have shared this view as added information in better understanding of Islam. The reader may or may not agree with the view owing to their own perception. If anyone differs with the material contained in this post, one may consult the references and their authors. If someone has more material about the subject, he/she is most welcome to share in the comments box to make the post all encompassing.
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