By Allama Ibtisam Elahi Zaheer
Allah swt has blessed human beings with countless blessings.He has made many arrangements to fulfill all the physical and spiritual needs of His creation.He created vegetables and fruits to provide food to human beings .Similarly he created sunlight so that human beings can do work during day time and created night for our rest and sleep.He blessed us with homes and families so that we can easily pass our time.He generated many different professions for us so that we can grow according to our abilities and choice. He created different colours to please our sights and created different flavors to soothe our taste buds.In the same way He raised prophets and revealed books to guide humanity to right path and clearly mentioned the right and wrong path. After all these favours and blessings What was His demand? it was demanded by Allah swt in Quran:
Therefore remember Me (by praying, glorifying, etc.). I will remember you, and be grateful to Me (for My countless Favours on you) and never be ungrateful to Me. (Al-Baqarah 2:152)
It is unlucky that we do not care about the demand of Allah swt and totally ignore the blessings of Allah swt and follow our desires without thinking that our desires are right or wrong .We never care that we are doing halal or haram.We forget that our desires are making us weak and vulnerable and we are being surrounded by problems and crisis in our lives .We think that we are facing these problems by chance where as the real reason is that our ungratefulness is inviting wrath of Allah swt .Allah swt clearly says in Holy Quran:
If you are thankless (i.e. disbelievers), verily! My Punishment is indeed severe." (Ibrahim 14:7)
How can we overcome all the problems.Allah swt has mentioned many solutions to resolve our problems in the Holy Quran and one solution is that we should be thankful to Allah swt. If we will be grateful the result is obvious
And (remember) when your Lord proclaimed: "If you give thanks (by accepting Faith and worshipping none but Allâh), I will give you more (of My Blessings), (Ibrahim 14:7)
Allah swt never punishes the person who is thankful and acknowledges the blessing of Allah swt on Him .This reality has been mentioned in Holy Quran
Why should Allâh punish you if you have thanked (Him) and have believed in Him. And Allâh is Ever All¬Appreciative (of good), All¬Knowing. (An-Nisa 4:147)
It is obvious from above discussion that a simple way to overcome our problems is to be grateful to Allahswt for His favour and blessings .There are three stages of being thankful
1 By heart
2 By tongue
3 By action
By heart means that we should be thankful to Allah swt from the depth our heart for all His favours and blessing on us and we should have feelings of satisfaction and contentment in our heart and there should be no signs of dissatisfaction and anxiety in us.
By tongue means that we should say Alhamdolillah and praise Allah swt for the blessings He has bestowed on us as Allah has said in Holy Quran :
And proclaim the Grace of your Lord . (Ad-Duha 93:11)
By action means that our actions should reflect our feelings .We should not waste his blessings .We should use our abilities ,energies and resources in right and Halal direction and avoid and abstain from wrong and haram direction.We should submit our body,intellect and wealth before Him.
May Allah swt make us grateful and save us from being unthankful ameen
