Why Should I Be Thankful
By Abdul Nasir Jangda | 2026-01-19T08:03:17.953351+00:00 | Topic: General
Why Should I Be Thankful
Shaykh Abdul Nasir Jangda
Opening of Khutba
All praise is due to Allah, praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, abundant, good, and blessed praise, and prayers and peace be upon the most honorable of prophets and messengers, our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his family and companions.
I bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone, without partner in creation and command, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, sent to the red and the black, preserved by the opening of the chest and the raising of the mention, may Allah bless him and his family and companions, the best of the Arabs and the best of creation after the prophets.
And after, O people, fear Allah alone, for taqwa is the head of obedience, and fear Allah, for taqwa is the possession of good, and adhere to the Sunnah, for the Sunnah guides to obedience, and whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has been guided, and whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has gone astray, and adhere to excellence, for Allah loves those who do good.
I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan.
First Quranic Verse
"Do you not see that Allah has subjected to you whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth and has lavished upon you His favors, both apparent and unapparent? But of the people is he who disputes about Allah without knowledge or guidance or an enlightening book."
Introduction
Alhamdulillah, by the grace and mercy of Allah, Allah has given us another opportunity, another blessed opportunity to not just live, but to be able to worship Allah. To be able to present something humble, something meager before Allah as a sign of our gratitude, as a sign of our appreciation for all the blessings of Allah upon us.
To stay relevant to the occasion, to the topic, to the time that we're in right now, we obviously understand everyone around us, the majority of the people around us are celebrating, are enjoying a long weekend, a holiday weekend which is known as Thanksgiving. And everyone around us is talking about what they're grateful for. Everybody's posting on Facebook what they're grateful for. Everyone is mentioning what they're grateful for.
The Concept of Gratitude in Islam
And I felt it was an appropriate occasion for us to talk a little bit about the concept of gratitude and appreciation within Islam. But to not just simply stop there. To not make it just a very superficial, obvious discussion about shukr and gratitude. But to take the discussion further. To take a deeper look, to really understand the concept of gratitude.
The Problem with Superficial Gratitude
And the bigger issue with gratitude is what it demands of us. What it requires of us, what is the consequence of gratitude. Because you see for us, and like you're seeing around you today - there's a lot of younger folks here today as well for the khutbah because of obviously there not being any school - the same person yesterday who posts, "I'm grateful for this and this and this" on their Facebook or on social media or wherever it may be, today that same person will turn around and talk about how horrible their life is. How much their life is not according to their wishes or their demands or the way they would like for it to be. And they'll be complaining about everything from their parents to their friends, to their situation, to how their phone isn't the latest greatest thing that's out today.
So what we realize from that is as human beings, we have the tendency to separate shukr. We have the tendency to separate gratitude or gratefulness and showing appreciation into simply a verbal exercise where we say "I'm grateful." Whereas the verbal exercise is a part of the package of gratitude and gratefulness and appreciation and thanks, but it is not the end.
The Consequence of Gratitude
In fact, so what I wanted to talk about is the consequence of gratitude. What does gratitude result in? What is the consequence of showing gratitude, being thankful to Allah? And in terms of that I wanted to present a few basic ayat of the Quran. I wanted to present a few reflections from some of the verses of the book of Allah and also some of the wisdom of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم)
First Reflection: Everything Serves You
The very first ayah I wanted to share with you which I just read is from Surah Luqman where Allah in ayah number 20 of Surah Luqman says:
(أَلَمْ تَرَوْا - Alam taraw) - "Have you all not seen?"
And when Allah - that's a literal translation - but what Allah in classical Arabic, the word of even seeing something is used in the context of pondering and reflecting upon something. So Allah is asking us: Have all of you not thought? Have all of you not reflected? Have all of you not realized up until now?
(أَنَّ اللَّهَ سَخَّرَ لَكُم مَّا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ - Anna Allaha sakhkhara lakum ma fi as-samawati wa ma fil ard) - that Allah has completely subjugated - now it's kind of a complex fancy word. What it basically means is that Allah has put all that which is in the heavens and the
skies and all that which is on the earth, which is on this ground - everything that is in the sky and everything that is in the earth - Allah has put it to your service. Allah has put it to your service.
Allah has crafted it, has made it to facilitate your life for you. To make your life easier, to make your life better for you. That is the sole purpose, that is the primary function of all the other creation of Allah that exist in this world aside from the human being. The human being is for Allah.
Like there's a little saying of wisdom that the scholars would say: (خُلِقَتِ الدُّنْيَا لَكُمْ وَخُلِقْتُمْ لِلْآخِرَةِ - Khuliqatid dunya lakum wa khuliqtum lil akhirah) - "This dunya, this world that you live in was created for you, but you were created for the akhirah." You were created to serve God, to serve Allah.
Practical Examples
And so Allah is saying everything in the heavens and the earth is serving you. Haven't you ever stopped to think and realize and ponder upon that? I mean subhanAllah, just yesterday as you know we're visiting here, so yesterday they took us up into the mountains. And they took us up into the smoky mountains here. And we were all the way on the top of a mountain. And I couldn't help but think of the ayah from Surah Al-Mulk where Allah actually tells us:
(Quran 67:15) - "He's the one that made the earth humble beneath you. Meaning he made it lower to you, he made it humble for you, and tread on this earth."
And then Allah says (فَامْشُوا فِي مَنَاكِبِهَا - Famshu fi manakibiha) - "Even go and walk amongst its shoulders" - its protruding bones, which according to many of the Mufassirun refers to the mountains. That even these great magnificent mountains that hold the earth into place, Allah is telling you go and walk around on the mountain.
Forget about walking around the mountain. We drove on a road that was paved on a mountain. And when we got up there, there were hundreds of vehicles sitting on top of that mountain. As great and as powerful and as magnificent as that mountain is, the human being is superior to it. The human being is walking on it, driving on it, building on it.
I just came back from Hajj a couple of weeks ago. And over there they were constructing, they're building a new tunnel. Because right now as it stands, I don't remember the exact name of the location, but you have to drive all the way around this huge mountain. And so to create a better flow of traffic they're making a tunnel. Now how do you end up making a tunnel through a mountain? They're taking explosives and they're blowing them up and literally ripping a hole inside of this mountain. SubhanAllah, think about that.
The Extent of Allah's Blessings
So Allah is saying that haven't you ever stopped to think and realize everything in existence serves you. And who's done that? Allah has done that for you. Allah has made it this way.
(وَأَسْبَغَ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعَمَهُ - Wa asbagha alaikum ni'amahu) - And this is the crux. Allah says (وَأَسْبَغَ - wa asbagha) which literally means, this is the more emphatic, the hyperbolized version of the same verb. And what it means is that He has showered down upon you, He has drenched you in, He has poured down on top of you (نِعَمَهُ - ni'amahu) - His blessings.
And there's so much eloquence, so much built into just these two words (وَأَسْبَغَ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَةٌ - wa asbagha alaikum ni'mah) - just these three words. That He has showered down upon you. And then Allah says specifically upon you, because there's abnormal sentence structure here. And then Allah says (نِعَمَةٌ - ni'mah)
Now people very, even vaguely familiar with the Arabic language will know that that is the plural, the singular word is (نِعْمَة - ni'mah) نِعْمَة means blessing. It's the singular, نِعَم is the plural. But however when you look within the Quran - like I said, even if you know basic Arabic - there are two plurals mentioned in the Quran for نِعْمَة. نِعَم and the other one is أَنْعْم. There's a second plural. There are two different plurals for blessings mentioned in the Quran.
أَنْعم is also the plural of نِعْمَة. Now what's the difference between these two plurals? And if there are two plurals, is it as easy as potato, potato, tomato, tomato? They're interchangeable? You can switch one after the other, obviously not - it's كلام الله So when Allah picked a specific plural for this place, He picked it for a reason.
So when you study it, when you take a look into it, you realize the difference between the two plurals is that أَنْعْم is what the Arabs would call جَمْعُ الْقِلَّةِ - it's a smaller plural. Typically if you're counting something literally, it would be used for something between 3 and 10. A dozen of something. A manageable number, something you could count on your fingers. Smaller plural.
When you want to have a bigger plural, a bigger plural, the word is. It's جَمْعُ الْكَثْرَةِ - it's a big plural. It means hundreds and thousands and millions of something. It's the big plural. Allah mentions the big plural here. That He has showered down upon you millions upon billions upon trillions of His blessings. So many blessings you don't even realize.
The Countless Nature of Allah's Blessings
Like Allah says in another place in the Quran:
(Quran 14:34) "Allah has granted to you, Allah has given you, He has granted you each and every single thing that you ask of Him. He's given you everything that you ask of Him. So much so that even beyond that Allah says وَإِن تَعُدُّوا - And if you were to attempt to count - تَعُدُّوا literally means to sit there one, two, three, four - if you sat there and tried to count نِعْمَتَ اللَّهِ - the blessing of Allah - لَا تُحْصُوهَا - You'd never fully be able to take them all into account. If you tried to count the blessing of Allah, you'd never fully be able to take them into account."
Something else interesting about there in terms of the power of the language of the Quran is that Allah uses a singular نِعْمَتَ الله - blessing of Allah. There's two explanations. One is that this is اسْمُ الْجِنْسِ - the singular represents the entire category, the entire entity. But there's a second - there's some لطافة - there's some deep eloquence here. Allah uses one blessing because Allah is saying even if you dedicated your entire life to appreciating just one blessing that Allah has given you - forget about all the blessings - you decided to dedicate your life to fully appreciating, understanding and valuing one blessing - take any one blessing that you have - "I will thank Allah, I will appreciate Allah, I will understand the magnitude of one blessing" - you won't be able to do so.
Personal Examples of Blessings
I was talking when I got back from Hajj - one of my friends and one of my students - you know I went to go meet some of the students and talk and visit with some of the brothers after I got back. I went to go visit him. And he had a patch over his eye. And his eye was looking like he couldn't open his eye. And I was talking to him afterwards. And he ends up telling me that he had surgery while I was gone for Hajj. He had surgery on his eye. What happened brother? You know he's an active brother. He plays sports and stuff. So I figured maybe he was playing some sports. You know somebody hit him in the eye or poked his eye or something like that. He's like no, I had surgery for a detached retina. Like just detached. And so he had major surgery to fix that.
I asked what happened. Were you playing sports? Did you try to do something crazy? What happened? He's like no, I was just sitting there. And I noticed day by day for a few days I could see less and less and less out of my eye. To the point where I was nearly blinded in one eye. I couldn't see anymore. I went to go see the doctor. And he's like yeah your retina is detached. We have to do surgery. We have to operate on you.
SubhanAllah. What a blessing these eyes are. Somebody just sitting there. Comfort of his home. Retina just detaches. Goes blind in one eye. What a huge blessing of Allah. Let alone anything else. So just to appreciate each and every single blessing of Allah.
So Allah says (وَأَسْبَغَ عَلَيْكُمْ نِعْمَةٌ - wa asbagha alaikum ni'mah) - has poured down, showered down, rained down upon you His abundant blessings. Specifically upon you. Only for you. Your name is written on each and every one of those blessings.
Apparent and Hidden Blessings
And then Allah says something profound : ظاهِرَةً وَبَاطِنَةً - "Apparent and unapparent" - I mean those blessings that are obvious and those blessings that are not so obvious. And that's something for us to think about. The obvious blessings we understand. We thank Allah. We say Alhamdulillah. We eat food. We say Alhamdulillah. We drink water. We say Alhamdulillah. But then there are blessings that we don't
think about. We should be grateful for them, but they escape our mind. We forget to be grateful for these things.
You know it's the little things. We overlook them. Let's go back to the eyes. The ability to see. Do you ever think about what a blessing that is? I mean obviously we understand I can drive myself. I can walk. I can take care of myself. I'm not blind.
I was over there in Madinatul Munawwara. I was in the Masjid of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. There was a black man sitting there. And because there was so much traffic - I mean there were so many people there. It was the days after Hajj. So this man had come. Put his shoes and put his little walking stick down. Alright? And he had sat down right next to the shoe rack to pray. And after the prayer and all the rush and all the crowd, he got kind of pushed around and turned around a little bit. And the man was literally crawling around on all fours trying to find his way back to his shoes.
And SubhanAllah, so aside from being able to take care of yourself, the fact that we can see, we can take care of ourselves. Think about what a blessing it is to see. Think about if you didn't have the ability to see. You never would have known what a tree looks like. What the color of the sky is. You know for those of you who have children, who have family members, who have families of their own, imagine never having seen the face of your own child. One of the greatest blessings of Allah, once you have children, one of the greatest blessings of Allah is the face of your child. It's the most beautiful thing in this world.
You can go to the mountains. You can go to the ocean. You can go witness anything. You can look at the most amazing piece of art. There's nothing more beautiful in this world than the face of your child. You could have the worst day of your life, but when you walk through the door and your child comes running and smiling at you, that's it, it's over. Your worries are gone. Imagine never having seen with your own eyes the face of your own child. What a huge blessing of Allah. What an enormous blessing of Allah. And that's just one باطنة
The Test of Gratitude
So this is gratitude. This is gratefulness. And this is what really needs to soak in and sink in. This is what we need to realize. And one of the greatest tests - like Allah says in the Quran - that Allah gave us everything that we have:
"Whether I'll be grateful or I'll be ungrateful."
So one of the greatest tests for the human being is to not be ungrateful. To avoid ingratitude. To always be grateful. But it's very difficult with the emotional condition that we have today. The lack of patience we have today. The global culture of instant gratification that we live in today is very easy to slip back into ingratitude.
So I always recommend, especially when I speak to youth, I talk to younger folks who tend to be a little bit more impatient, what I always like to recommend to them is: The second you feel like complaining about something, the second something doesn't go your way and you're about to lash out, you're about to say some words of ingratitude, count three blessings that you enjoy. Three simple blessings that you enjoy. And small little things. You have the ability to walk. You have the ability to hear. You have the ability to speak. And then see if you still feel ungrateful for what's going on with you. See if you still feel like complaining afterwards.
The Consequence of Gratitude
So these are the enormous, unbelievable, uncountable blessings of Allah in our lives that we enjoy. Now to talk about the consequence of gratitude. So we understand that we're supposed to be grateful. And we have plenty to be grateful for. Like the Quran says, we have so much to be grateful for. We don't even realize. We can never even fully understand how much it is that we have to be grateful for.
But now what's the consequence of this gratitude? Because again we want to get away from it being just purely a verbal exercise. It begins with stating that verbally to Allah, but it's got to move on to something else. And I want to explain the consequence. What Allah has asked of us in exchange for this. And that in and of itself will make us even more grateful.
The Department Store Analogy
The analogy I'd like to use, I'm going to lay out a very thorough analogy for you. And then we'll connect the dots. And that analogy as well I think will be somewhat fitting because today's, you know, the day when everybody goes shopping. Right, everybody's been out shopping since midnight last night, since early this morning.
So imagine you go to a department store. You go to the mall. You walk into a department store. All right? And as soon as you walk up, walk through the door, at the door they hand you a hundred dollar bill. They hand you a hundred dollar bill. "This is for you to spend in this store today." Okay, that's great, fantastic.
So now what happens is you go around the store collecting and buying things that add up to a hundred dollars. You reach the cashier. You reach the counter. You put all of your merchandise on the counter. They ring it up. And it's a hundred dollars. Right, it's a hundred dollars worth of stuff. But the cashier turns to you and says, "That'll be ten dollars."
You say, "Wait a second. I bought a hundred dollars worth of things. You gave me a hundred dollars to spend. I bought a hundred dollars worth of things. So here it is, a hundred dollars."
"Like no, we're giving you a 90% discount. All we want from you is ten dollars."
So you say, "Okay."
Then on top of that the cashier tells you, "By the way, if you're willing to spend this ten dollars, if you're willing to take a ten out of that hundred that we gave you and put it here on this counter right now, hand it back, just ten out of the hundred, then what we will do is we will give you, we will hand you an extra thousand dollars as a gift."
It's like, "Okay."
And then the cashier tells you, "Wait a second, the deal's not over. After we give you a thousand dollars right now, cash, we hand it to you, when you get back home two weeks later, in the mail, we're going to send you a check for a hundred thousand dollars."
Now is it as ridiculous and as preposterous as this example analogy sounds, is there any one of us that wouldn't take that deal? We all would. You'd get on the phone and start texting and calling all your friends. "You need to get here now. That's it, they've lost their mind here." Right, so everybody needs to be here now.
Connecting the Analogy to Allah's Generosity
Well, the reason why I give this analogy is it's the closest thing I could think of of how Allah deals with us. Nothing compares to Allah's generosity and Allah's mercy and kindness, but it's the closest analogy I could think of that somewhat symbolizes, represents the generosity and the kindness of Allah upon us.
See, Allah created us. Granted us our existence. He gave us everything that we have. From our senses and our abilities, our physical strength, our intelligence, our talents, our families, our parents, our spouses, our children, our friendships, our home, our car, our food. He gave us everything that we have in this world. And said, do what?
"Go use it for yourself. Enjoy life. Just don't cross any major lines. But other than that, go eat and drink. Live life."
However, there's only one thing we'd like for you to do. We gave you all of this, Allah says, but there's only one thing we would need in return. Just like that cashier only asked for 10 out of the 100 back. Allah asks what from us?
What Allah Asks in Return
Five times a day. Take out five minutes of your time and pray Salah. There are 24 hours in a day. 24 hours in a day. Out of that, Allah wants us to give back 30 minutes. And mashallah, if you're somebody who is a little more punctual, regular about your Salah, you're kind of excelling in your Deen. So you pray your Sunnah, you pray your Nawafil. You do all those wonderful, beautiful things that you're supposed to along with your prayer. So let's say an hour. But that's it, right? Five times a day. 15 minutes in each
prayer. Even then it's an hour. Allah says 23 hours are for you. One hour a day, give it back to Allah. Stay within the lines, within the boundaries. But other than that, live life.
12 months in a year. For 11 months, eat and drink. Eat and drink. One month out of the year, one out of 12. One month out of the year, one out of 12. Don't eat or drink from this hour to this hour. From this time to this time. Give up your physical pleasures, your physical indulgences. Eating, drinking, physical intimacy with the spouse. From this time to this time, that's it.
All the money that Allah has blessed us with that Allah has given us. Use it. Feed your family, feed yourself, live life. What do you need to do? Out of your savings - not even out of your total net worth, not even out of your total income - out of your savings, the wealth that you have had for an entire year, take 2.5% of your savings and give it back into zakat, that's what we call zakat, charity.
Once in your life. Spend some money, take out a few weeks of your time. For us, it's a few weeks. For the people that used to do hajj, I remember talking to my grandmother, took them 3-4 months to do hajj from Pakistan. They used to board a ship. They would go on a boat. So for us, take out 2-3 weeks of your time. Take some money out of your savings. And do hajj once in your life. That's it.
The Minimal Nature of Allah's Demands
How minimal is the demand that Allah has made of us? It's only 10 out of 100. He gave us $100, said, "Spend it. Enjoy yourself. Just take that 10 back out and put it back on the counter." Just 30 minutes a day. One hour a day, pray. One month out of the year, fast. 2.5% of your savings given zakat and charity. That's it.
The Rewards for This Small Investment
And if you're willing to do that, what happens? Allah will abundantly reward us in this world.
- Give us the most amazing life you can imagine. You'll be the envy of people. Such an amazing, wonderful life of peace, tranquility, serenity, fulfillment, satisfaction that Allah will grant you. He will shower down, rain down His blessing and His barakat, His barakat, His blessings upon you.
And then, it's still not over. That's what He'll give you in this world. Respect. Peace. Tranquility. Abundance. Barakat. Blessing. Happiness. Love. Affection. He'll give you these things in this world.
The Rewards in the Afterlife
And then just like the cashier tells you 2-3 weeks later in the mail you'll receive a check for $100,000, in the akhirah, when we've left this world and we've moved on to the next life:
In the grave, the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم promises us that the grave of this person will be expanded as far as the eye can see. His grave will become a garden from the gardens of paradise.
That on the Day of Judgment, he will find a place when all of humanity will be standing under the sun and the hadith actually mentions that it'll be a mile above people's head - and people will be drowning in their own sweat, gnawing off their own arms. This person will be granted a place to sit and to rest under the shade of the throne, the arsh of Allah.
And then Allah will enter this person with honor, with dignity, with respect through the gates of paradise, through the gates of Jannah without any reckoning, without any accounting, with no questions asked. VIP, guest of honor.
You know when you attend an event just as a normal attendee, they check your little receipt. They check your little bracelet that they give you. The VIP folks, they don't get checked for that stuff. They're escorted, they're walked through before everyone else. They get seated in the front before everybody else. You'll get the VIP treatment. Walking, strolling through the gates of paradise. No questions asked, you are a VIP guest today.
And there in paradise, you will enjoy such blessings as the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم tells us:
(Bukhari 3244)
"No eyes have ever seen something this magnificent. No ears have ever heard of something so mind- blowing. And no heart could ever imagine something so remarkable."
That's what you will enjoy in the company of النَّبِيِّينَ وَالصِّدِّيقِينَ وَالشُّهَدَاءِ وَالصَّالِحِينَ Quran 4:69) - in the company of the most amazing people that ever walked the face of this earth.
Conclusion
That is all the consequence of gratitude. That is the consequence of gratitude. So what I wanted us to wrap our heads around today, something very basic, very simple. Yes, we need to be grateful. But that's obvious. I think any common decent human being understands that. Any common decent - we need to be reminded no doubt. We have bouts, we have fits of ingratitude. Right, we have bouts and fits of ingratitude. But nevertheless, once a human being sits down, takes a deep breath and takes an assessment, takes a look around him and takes a look at his life, I think no human being could ever deny the fact that I should be grateful.
So we have to be grateful. But like I said, that's pretty obvious, that's common sense, that's fitrah. But what I wanted to really, myself, what I need to understand, what I wanted everyone else here to understand today is the consequence of gratitude.
If I can get myself to be grateful and that gratefulness is personified, it is exemplified, it is manifested within the actions that we do - and that is Allah has asked something extremely very minimal of us - and if I'm willing to just offer that very minimal offering to Allah, then what is the consequence of that? He will
Closing
May Allah bless me and you in the Grand Quran, and benefit me and you with what is in it of verses and wise reminder. I seek forgiveness from Allah, the Great, whom there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer, and I repent to Him.
I say this statement of mine, and I seek forgiveness from Allah for me and for you and for all the Muslims, so seek forgiveness from Him. Indeed, He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.