Gratitude is the foundation of faith. It should be the driving force for us to worship Allah SWT. If we look into the Seerah of the Prophet we will see that whenever something good happened, the first thing he would do is make sujud-ash-shukr.
Unfortunately, this fundamental characteristic of faith is missing in our lives today. We’re not recognizing Allah’s blessings. We are not giving thanks to Allah for what He has given us; instead, we are living dissatisfied lives, running after the dunya and trying to accumulate as much as we can.
We are too busy to stop, reflect and thank Allah in spite of the fact that Allah chose gratitude to begin our daily prayers 17 times a day. The first verse of ‘surah al fatiha’ according to the most authentic narrations begins with “Alḥamdulillāhi Rabbil Ālamīn”. The very fact that Allah has commanded us to recite this every day, 17 times a day is for a purpose. He has placed gratitude as the first and the most important characteristic that we as believers should have.
The Prophet Muhammad demonstrated for us in the well-known narration of him getting up at night praying, crying till his beard was filled with his tears and his ankles swelling. When his wives and his companions asked him why he should do all this when Allah has forgiven his past sins and future sins, he replied: “Shouldn’t I be a grateful servant?”, if Allah had forgiven his past and future sins, he wanted to show his gratitude to Allah for this blessing.
Similarly, if Allah wipes out our sins from prayer to prayer, from Jumu’ah to Jumu’ah, when we fast in Ramadan, when we fast outside of Ramadan, if our sins are being erased in so many different ways, we should show our gratitude to Allah for these blessings. Allah says:
“And He gave you from all you asked of Him. And if you should count the favor of Allah, you could not enumerate them. Indeed, mankind is [generally] most unjust and ungrateful.”
Source: IOU BLOG
