How Gratitude Shapes our Lives
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-08T20:14:06.150851+00:00 | Topic: Iman
How Gratitude Shapes our Lives - Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan
Opening Supplication
"Now then, I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Shaitan."
"And remember Allah will remember you, and be grateful to Him, He will increase you, and the remembrance of Allah is greater. And Allah knows what you do."
عِبَادَ اللهِ، رَحِمَكُمُ اللهُ اتَّقُوا اللهَ
"O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad as You sent blessings upon Ibrahim and upon the family of Ibrahim. Indeed, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious. O Allah, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as You blessed Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim. Indeed, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious."
الْعَصْرِ إِنَّ
"Indeed, mankind is in loss, Except for those who have iman and do righteous deeds and advise each other to truth and advise each other to patience."
"O Allah, make us among those who have iman and do righteous deeds and advise each other to truth and advise each other to patience."
"O Allah, make us firm at the time of death with the statement, 'There is no god but Allah.'"
"My Lord, expand for me my breast [with assurance] And ease for me my task And untie the knot from my tongue That they may understand my speech."
Introduction: The History of the Israelites
The Quran speaks about the plight of the Israelites, Banu Israel. There are many chapters of their history that are included in several surahs of the Quran, famously Surah Al-Baqarah, but many other places as well. What I want to share with you today are three ayahs that belong to Surah Ibrahim, and some lessons from them that have to do with the history of the Israelites.
Allah, what He does sometimes is He takes a very small scene from this long history, this thousands of years of history of the Israelites, centuries and centuries, and then He takes a small scene and gives us timeless guidance from that one small scene. And so He does that in these ayahs. And this is a scene of the Israelites having escaped Egypt.
The Oppression Under Pharaoh
They've been under persecution for many generations now, and they've been kept as a slave race. What that means is they live in ghettos, they live in this kind of sub-prime kind of housing or sub-standard housing, and they are in a military encampment. In other words, they can't just go outside whenever they feel like it, there's military presence outside and they have to go by their permission.
On the one side of it, they're landlocked because their security checkpoints, they can't just go wherever they want, and the soldiers force them to go do labor, men, women, children. You can imagine young men watching their parents being whipped and beat as they're doing work, and they can't do anything about it. And if they open their mouth, there's slaughter that takes place.
And He's keeping the slave population under control, and on the other side of it is the river. And the river flows towards the palace. So if they try to escape by water, they'll end up towards the palace.
So there's no way for them to get out. They're completely locked and stuck in this situation for many generations. And of course it's a limited space.
Pharaoh's Political Strategy
And you also have to understand, Firaun is evil but he's also a political genius. So he understands that if he keeps this population under control, and they're obviously going to have children, and among those children will be men and there will be women, and men make good labor. But when these boys grow up, enough of them, they're going to be, when they're teenagers or 20 years old or whatever, they're going to be hot-headed.
So when they see their sister being harassed, or their mother being slapped, they're not going to take it. And if there are enough of them, there might be a revolution. They might stand up against him.
So he understands that he has to control, he needs the slave labor, but he can't have too many of them. Because they might revolt and throw over the whole country, and his kingdom. So even though there's the biblical analysis, and some have in the Quran, Tafsir have also accepted that view, that he saw a dream that someone from those children is going to overthrow his empire.
I'm also giving you kind of a political backdrop to why he's having those nightmares. He's having those nightmares because if there's enough of them, they will overthrow his empire. One of them will rise and the others, you can only suppress people so much, until they can't take it anymore.
So his policy became every other year, he's going to slaughter all the boys. And they would commit this mass genocide of children, and throw the corpses in the river. That's what they would do.
The Suffering of the Israelites
And this is how the Israelites lived for a long time. So you know, you can imagine the sorrow of one grieving mother, one grieving father. But can you imagine the sorrow of an entire nation that's grieving? The kinds of woes and cries that are happening.
Can you imagine the scene of soldiers going door to door and doing this? This is how these people lived, and lived like this for a very, very long time. And so when Allah جل وعز finally opened the doors for them, which is a long story, how did He open that door for them? But that's not the scene today. The scene is not that.
I'm just giving you a little bit of background, so you appreciate where we are. Allah جل وعز opens that door, the water parts. It's impossible to cross because they can't escape anywhere.
Where are they going to go? The river is going to lead them right back to the military that's trying to kill them. But Allah جل وعز opens the water for them. And now they have a way to escape, miraculously.
And they escape. And Allah جل وعز He drowns the Pharaoh and his armies. But now where are they? That's the next question.
In the Desert: A New Crisis
This entire huge population of people is in the middle of the desert. Men, women, children, and they've left their home behind, they can't pack everything that they owned. Put yourself and myself in that situation, our families, our kids in that situation.
They're outside in the burning desert, there's no shade to be found anywhere. And fine, we didn't get killed by the Pharaoh, and we didn't get shot down by the spears, and we didn't drown in the river. But now we're going to die of starvation in the desert.
And there's this restless huge population, and its leader is Musa عليه السلام. And he has to now, now what do we do? We don't have a country, we don't have a home, we have nothing. What are we going to do? And so at that moment, Musa عليه السلام gives them a speech.
Musa's Speech: Remember Allah's Favor
He addresses them. And he is now going to give this population a sermon about how they need to handle this situation, this crisis situation. He says:
Some have used here as مباشرة,meaning Musa عليه السلام says to his people, make mention of Allah's favor on you from the very moment he's... now that he's rescued you from the Pharaoh and his entire legacy, his entire descendants.
Now that you've escaped, make mention of Allah's favor. Now these people are thinking, make mention of Allah's favor. When you and I think of Allah's favor, we think we have food, we have clothing, we have a car, we have a job, we have luxury in life.
These are Allah's favors. So he decides to mention Allah's favors to them. What favors of Allah should you remember that you should be grateful? So he says to them:
The Pharaohs and his people that used to humiliate you with the worst kinds of humiliation. Blacken your faces. What that means is tarring your faces. Old cultures to put tar on the faces to humiliate somebody.
In other words, to have no honor for your family, for the women of your family. The soldiers would do whatever they want. This is what you used to suffer.
They used to slaughter, massacre. It's not يذبحون إذ يذبحون - they used to massacre your sons.
And they would allow your women to live. Because they'll produce more later. And for unthinkable reasons also.
The Paradox of Calling Suffering a Favor
The confusing thing about this ayah so far is, he said make mention of what? Allah's favor. Make mention of Allah's favor. The fact that they were humiliated, the fact that their children were being slaughtered, the fact that their daughters were being allowed to live, doesn't sound like favors. That sounds like some pretty bad stuff.
But the commentary began, make mention of Allah's favor. Which favors? These favors. How can these be favors? The fact is, we're overlooking one thing. إِذْ أَنجَاكُمْ - He rescued you from all of this. That's the favor of Allah. This is what you were in. He got you out of this, and this, and this. And that is Allah's favor.
What happens is, when someone's in a crisis, what they see in front of them, is the problem that they have right now. These people are seeing the desert in front of them, starving and dehydrating babies in their arms. They're seeing the fact that they have no home. Where are they gonna find food? Where do you find food in the desert? Where do you find water in the desert? You can't turn back either? What are you gonna do? So, you're in the middle of the storm.
You're in the middle of this life and death situation. You can't think of how can this be a good thing. And Musa عليه السلام first says listen, as bad as this is, there was something far worse. There was something far, far worse that Allah has already pulled you out of. Allah has already taken you out of.
The First Step in Gratitude
The first step in gratitude isn't just to think of the good things Allah has done. Here, Musa عليه السلام is reminding his people and through the Quran, all of us, a step towards being grateful to Allah is to remember the terrible things that have already happened that Allah has saved you from, that He's pulled you out of already.
This is what if... in other words, this is nothing compared to what happened before. That was a huge trial. And look at how Allah even rescued you from that. If Allah has given you the favor of getting out of the hands of the most powerful ruler in history, without an army, you know, how can you escape as a people from the clutches of the most powerful military:
Take over whatever nation they want, nobody messed with them, their armies were well established, pegged into the ground, there is no way for a civilian population to escape, and Allah got you out of there through impossible odds, why are you being ungrateful? Why are you being ungrateful? You should not be ungrateful.
First of all, make mention of Allah's favor upon you.
The Promise of Increase Through Gratitude
And then the next, but that, okay fine, I'm grateful, thanks for the sermon, I'm really grateful now, that doesn't solve my problem, I'm still dying of thirst, my baby is still crying, you know, the old people don't have a place to even sit down, where are we gonna live? We're gonna die grateful I suppose, what do we do with this? We're expecting from Musa عليه السلام now to give a khutbah about sabr. You're in a difficult situation, anybody who's going through a difficult situation, you turn to them and say, you should have what? Patience.
This is what's required at the time. What is Musa عليه السلام sermon
Remember the moment your master has declared, he's made you open your ears to this announcement, that if you were to be grateful, I will absolutely, I promise it, I will increase you, increase you and increase you. The khutbah he gave is not about being patient, the khutbah he gave is about being grateful.
He didn't say if you're patient, Allah will solve your problem. He said if you're grateful, if you're grateful. But he didn't even say if you're grateful, Allah will make a way out for you.
Like other places in Quran he says:
Whoever has taqwa of Allah, Allah will make a way out for them. Allah will give them an escape. Not in this ayah, it's not even an escape.
Gratitude in the Midst of Crisis
Because when a person is in difficulty and all you and I can think of is, how do I get out of this mess? How do I get out of it? How do I get out of this pain? How do I come out of the hospital? How do I come out of this legal thing? How do I come out of this problem or that problem? That's all you can think of.
Right now, Allah جل وعز gives him a promise, if you can show the least bit of gratitude شَكَرْتُمْ - The maadhi, I won't get technical, it's a khutbah. But to say that if you can even show a single instant of gratitude in the middle of a crisis.
If you're in trouble and you're in dire situations, you're in desperate situations, and you can show that you are grateful to Allah in those moments, what will Allah do as a response? Because it is at that time, before I tell you what Allah promises, it is in those moments that a human being, we're just human, what can we do? We are overwhelmed with thoughts about our problems. All we can think about is what more is going to go wrong? What is going to become of this? How is it going to get worse? How about this and how about this? And these scenarios are playing in your head. And you're overrun by these scenarios.
You're just thinking about, bad and then bad and then bad, and it's just mutarakim, it's just compiling, compounding, one on top of the other, and your thoughts are invaded by the negative. You're just invaded by the negative.
The Mental Exercise of Gratitude
And in those moments, when someone says, have sabr, meaning let your mind attack you, let you yourself be self-destructive inside of your head, and while you're going through that internal pain, just take it.
We have sabr, it hurts, but... What does the Prophet Musa عليه السلام tell these people? And what does Allah سبحانه وتعالى take from that one snippet that He makes a timeless advice? In the moments of that kind of despair, you have to take your mind, and you have to take your heart, and you have to focus it on things that will remind you what you should be grateful for. You have to stop thinking about your problem. You have to stop thinking about a crisis.
You have to stop thinking about what's going wrong. You have to get that out of your head, get that out of your heart. All you're focused on is, what should make me grateful? Because unless you think about, you know, when people have a problem like, for example, you lost your job.
Somebody comes up to you, how's it going? Alhamdulillah. That's not Alhamdulillah. Because in your head, I lost my job, I have like one month's rent left, if that. I don't even know how I'm gonna pay the electricity bill. My kid's school tuition is coming up. I don't know what I'm gonna do.
But the Islamic thing to say is Alhamdulillah, so Alhamdulillah. In other words, the tongue is saying something the heart isn't feeling. The heart is not feeling, I have lots of reasons to be positive. I have lots
of reasons to be grateful to Allah. And that compels my tongue to say. Actually, it's more like, I know there's lots of problems, but I guess Alhamdulillah, somehow. Somehow.
Finding Something to Be Grateful For
شَكَرْتُمْ here, if you and I can internally, this is a mental, it's an emotional, it's a spiritual exercise. Internally, we can actually find something to be grateful for. Find something to be grateful for. And literally, what Allah جل وعز did for the Israelites through the words of Musa عليه السلام, is he showed them much worse scenarios. Would you prefer that you were still living under slavery? Would you prefer to see your mothers being treated that way, and your daughters being treated that way still? Would you prefer your newborn babies and watch their blood spill? Would you prefer that still? Hasn't Allah removed that calamity from you? Isn't there something to be grateful about?
If you can't even think of something positive to be grateful about, at the very least you can say to yourself, things could have been a lot worse. Allah kept things from being a lot worse. That you can be grateful for. And that's something nobody else can make you feel. You and I have to feel that for ourselves.
Allah's Promise vs. Human Expectations
But what will Allah do if we feel that? It's not just for you to feel better. Because you know, in modern times, when self-help books and this kind of psychological assistance and counseling or whatever, think positive. Everything will work out. Just be positive. Yeah, we're like, I'm positive but I'm still going bankrupt. I'm positive but I'm still going to jail. So, I'm positively going. You know.
What am I gonna do with being positive? How is it gonna solve my problem? My problems are still right there in front of me. There's no solution. But what does Allah do? Allah says, yes, your problems are in front of you, but I'll give you something nobody else can give you.
Yes, being grateful is about thinking positively. But for a believer, being positive is different from anybody else thinking positively. When a believer is positive, they're grateful to Allah. That's our positive thinking. What does Allah do in return?
- I swear to it لام الجواب القسم - I swear to it, and I emphasize, and I emphasize again, and I emphasize again. This is نون ثقيلة. It's called, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I will increase for you. I will enhance for you. I will make more for you.
The Unlimited Promise of Increase
Now that's an ambiguous thing to say. I will increase for you. I will enhance you. I'm telling you, I will enhance you, enhance you, and enhance you. Another way you can even think of it is, I'll give you more,
and more, and more. That's what Allah is saying. I'll give you more, and more, and more. I'll make you more, and more, and more.
But the question is, more what? Are you gonna give me more, and more? Like if somebody says, how's it going? What are your hopes with Allah? I hope Allah increases me. And you're like, increases you in what? Weight? Blood pressure? What do you wanna increase in? You have to qualify, right? Somebody says, hey, I've noticed that you increased. What is that? Did you increase in knowledge, or patience, or weight, or facial hair? What did you increase in? Unless you qualified, you don't know.
You know, for example, even the term increase, because it's مُبْهَم, there's always تَمْيِيز of it in Arabic. Because it's ambiguous, there's a qualifier. Like:
- Allah increase me. But that's open-ended. Increase me in what? So we say:
In knowledge, we qualify it. In this ayah, Allah says, if you're grateful, if in the middle of crisis, you can be grateful, I will increase you, I swear to it, but He doesn't say in what. He doesn't say:
He doesn't say, I'll increase you in blessings. I'll increase you in patience. I'll increase you in strength. I'll increase you in perseverance. I'll increase you in the reward of the akhira. Some offer. He doesn't qualify the offer.
Because He recognizes you're in the middle of a crisis, in which you have all kinds of things that need to be increased. Your personal strength needs to be increased. The blessing of Allah needs to be increased. The presence of angels around you needs to be increased. Protection from Allah needs to be increased. Rewards need to be increased.
There are things that need increase around you that can't be limited. And Allah جل وعز in recognition of that says, you show me gratitude and I will increase all the good things around you without limit. And I swear to it, that's what I'll do.
The Warning Against Ingratitude
But there's another flip side. And He adds:
And if you dare become ungrateful. I'm not saying disbelieve here because it's in muqabil of shukr. Right? So the translation correctly would be, and if you dare become ungrateful. By the way, those people in the desert have every reason to be ungrateful. They have every reason to complain.
Have you seen people standing for a long time in a line? You know, waiting for something, waiting for at the post office or a passport, getting to get a passport or you know, and people are cutting and it's hot and they're standing there. Some of you take your kids on vacation and sometimes for the ride, there's like a 40-minute line and you're standing there like, people are complaining, it's so hot, I don't want to do this, I hate Disney, etc, etc. You know, it's when your patience is tested and these are huge numbers of people.
That's not an easy circumstance to be in. But Allah says, even in the middle of this circumstance, if you people choose the path of ingratitude, if you people become people of complaint, then He says:
- My punishment is really severe.
I don't like ungrateful people, but the mercy of Allah in this ayah is that He didn't say, if you're ungrateful, then my punishment is severe. You know when you say if and then, the two things become correlated with each other. If you do this, then I'll do that. He did that with gratitude. If you're grateful, then I'll definitely increase you:
But on the flip side:
He didn't say:
Not even فَإِنَّ عَذَابِي لَشَدِيدٌ Just - فَإِنَّ عَذَابِي
My punishment is severe. In other words, I'm not saying if you're ungrateful in this moment that I'll punish you. But just remember, things could have been a lot worse. Think of it that way. Things could have been a lot worse.
The Culture of Complaint vs. Gratitude
Don't choose the path of ingratitude. Don't forget, because you know when you think about people, when you think about the world, when you think about money, when you think about society, then all you're thinking about are problems. When you're thinking about Allah, then you can learn to be grateful.
People give us a lot of reasons to complain in our life. The world around us gives us a lot of reasons to complain. As a matter of fact, we become a culture of complaining. You can't buy anything without looking at how many people complained about it. Right? You can't take a course in college without looking at a professor and finding out how many people complained about him or her, or a school, or whatever else. We're a culture of complaint.
We're not a culture of gratitude. We have to now become people that Allah increases. So Allah says:
Musa's Final Response
And finally, I leave you with this. Allah says, I know some people are so lost in their problems, they're like, yeah, yeah, okay, thanks for this whole be grateful thing, but I got bigger issues, you don't understand, okay? You don't know what I'm going through. So, keep your speech to yourself. Let me just, you know, sulk in my negativity.
Let me just, whatever. Oh, I can't even complain now? You know what's happened to me? Do you know what they did? Do you know what this happened? And you just like, you vent. And the response to that is:
Because you can imagine his congregation saying to him, seriously, you're gonna tell us, don't even complain? Not now, okay? Yeah, grateful for what? The sand? Doesn't taste good, I tried.
You know, people could complain. And so what does he say?
If you become ungrateful, you all wanna complain? Go ahead, keep complaining. You know what? If everyone on the earth keeps complaining, every last one of them becomes ungrateful:
Allah is independent. He didn't need you to be grateful. He's not offended by you not being grateful and now somehow he's... You know, you took something away from him.
Allah's Independence
You know, when you do something for someone, you help someone, and then they turn around and insult you, you could get offended like, I did all this for you and you do that to me. Allah doesn't do that. Allah didn't need your thanks or appreciation or acceptance or acknowledgement. He didn't need any of it. Allah is... Allah is غني, He didn't need it. He's independent of it.
He doesn't care that you didn't show gratitude. It took away nothing from His kingdom. It didn't upset Him. The only one you harmed was yourself. And if you're thinking, if you're not gonna be grateful, then who's gonna thank Him? You know, some really obnoxious atheist attitudes are, why does your God want us to thank Him all the time? Why is He so... بعض الله - They say, He's so self-centered.
You know what they do? They think of people and they imagine Allah would be like that. Because a person who always thinks people should appreciate me, people should thank me, people should praise me, is an arrogant self-centered person. And they think about people and then they imagine Allah must be like that too. You cannot impose what creation is and then impose those thoughts on Allah.
"[There is] nothing like unto Him"
What does Allah say about Himself?
Hamid - Allah is praised, Allah is thanked in and of Himself. Even if there was no creation in existence that didn't praise Him, He would still be حَمِيدٌ. His hamd would still be there. His praise and His gratitude would still be there if there was no one left to praise Him. That's not the point. You're not doing this for Allah.
The Deception of Shaitan
You know, shaitan comes and tricks you. Yeah, you're going through problems and Allah wants you to thank Him. Sure. Why should I do that for Allah? What did Allah do for me? That's what a person will say. That's what a person will say when influenced by shaitan. Why should I do this for Allah? What has He done for me? Every time I prayed, I prayed, I prayed, and look where we are.
As a matter of fact, the followers of Musa (عليه السلام), even before they crossed the desert, because the water hadn't parted yet. You know what they said to them? You know أُوذينا, we were being tortured before you got here. And thanks a lot. After you got here, we're still in trouble. What's the point? What? Thanks a lot. Just new problems now.
Like they didn't see the point. Why should I turn to Allah? It's not like my problems disappeared. And Allah responds, if you wanna be ungrateful, go ahead. My promise is I will increase you. But increase you on His timetable, not yours. It's not gonna happen when you want it to happen.
Allah has a schedule for when He's gonna increase you, how He's going to increase you, how He's going to bring you out of your calamity.
Conclusion and Supplication
May Allah (جل وعز) make us a people of gratitude, and not a people of ingratitude. May Allah (جل وعز) allow our hearts to internalize the teachings of His book.
"Indeed, Allah orders justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded."
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