 Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Rabbil Alameen wa salatu wa salamu ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim al-Mu'ineen. Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barakah ala Sayyidina Muhammadin nurika sari wa madadika al-jali wa jami'ini bi zikr al-adwari wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sahbihi wa sallim ya'nur. Ya ayyuhal ladzeena amanu, itaqullah, itaqullah haqqat wa ala tamatuna illa wa anto muslimoon. Alhamdulillah, one of the traits that is at the essence of this Deen. And that is that the essence of following the sunnah of the Prophet salli ala salam is to be somebody who is grateful, someone who exemplifies the trait of gratitude, somebody who is thankful to Allah for all of their blessings. In fact, it is such a great trait that Allah paired this trait with dhikr. He says in the Qur'an that be grateful and don't disbelieve. And then he says to remember him that gratitude is at the essence of remembering Allah because Allah has given the human being so many blessings, especially us Muslims, so many blessings. The greatest of which is the blessing of believing in Allah and the blessing of Allah sending the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as our role model. But he says in the Qur'an that few of my servants are always grateful, that you might have people who are grateful one time, you might have people, you know, the thanksgiving holidays coming up, something they celebrate in this culture, it's a day of giving thanks. You might have people who are grateful one day a year, but few of my servants are always grateful. It is one of the biggest secrets in this religion and it is one of the quickest ways to ascend to the nearness of Allah, to have an outlook of shukr, to have an outlook of gratitude, especially in a time that is filled with ingratitude, that is filled with complaining, that is filled with looking at the glass half empty rather than the glass almost completely full. And actually the opposite of gratitude, the word kafir, kufr, it means one of the meanings is ingratitude, is the ingrate. So somebody who is a kafir is an ingrate, even if they don't disavow the beliefs of Islam, somebody can still be a kafir simply by not being grateful. And so it's very, very, very important. It is one of the end goals in this tradition. Allah regularly says in the Qur'an, do this, do that, لعلكم تشكرون, in order that you might be grateful. And it is one of the few traits that you and I will carry over from this life to Jannah, inshaAllah, if we make it there. That you don't need patience in Jannah, there's no more patience because there's no tribulation, there's no worry, there's no sickness, there's no COVID, there's no social distancing. None of that stuff is there in heaven, inshaAllah. So you don't need patience. You don't need to be, get rid of your reliance on things. And all of these other negative traits. But the positive trait of gratitude is there in Jannah, that people say, Alhamdulillah. وآخر الدعوان عن الحمد لله. That people say, Alhamdulillah in Jannah. So it is a trait that's from this life, but it is actually carried over with you to the next life because people are grateful for all the blessings that Allah has given them in Jannah. And yet the time that we live in, and this is why we have to be so conscious of this, is full of ingratitude. It's full of complaining about this situation. We're complaining about the coronavirus. We're complaining about our jobs. We're complaining about our boss. We're complaining about Zoom. We're complaining about online classes. We're complaining about online work. We're complaining about all of the different things that might bother us a little bit. But the funny thing about the human being is that 99% of things might be going right. And the 1% that is going not according to the way we desire it, we look at that. And we say, this is my problem. This is what I'm going through right now. We don't remember that we woke up this morning, Alhamdulillah, and our heart was beating, pumping blood throughout our body, that our eyes were working, that our eyes were moist, that our mouth was able to work, that our excretory system was working, our respiratory system was working, our endocrine system was working. We don't think about all of these things, that our brain was able to send signals to the hand to move the hand in this way or another, that we were able to get in our car, come here safely to the prayer, that we even have a prayer, Alhamdulillah, for many months we didn't have a prayer. We don't reflect on many of those things. And if we do Alhamdulillah, rather we say, ah, but this thing happened. Why did someone say this to me? Why was there traffic? Why was my boss saying this? Why was my family saying this? Why was my wife or my husband saying this? Why were my children doing this? And then we reflect on the negatives. The funny thing in the Quran, or the interesting thing in the Quran, is that Allah tells the Bani Israel, O dhkuroo ni'matullah, that remember the blessings of Allah, actually like an internal remembrance, to wake up and say, Alhamdulillah I have this, Alhamdulillah I have that, Alhamdulillah that I am able to work today, Alhamdulillah that I am able to see today. He reminds them to remember the blessings that Allah gave them. Even if you don't articulate it, even if you don't do anything about it, but just remembering those blessings is so important. And it's actually studies that show now that the person who regularly has a practice of gratitude, it helps them get out of depression. You start writing down a few of the blessings that you have. You have a goal of writing down 10 blessings. Next thing you'll know you'll have 25. Next thing you'll know about 100. Next thing you'll know you can list out 500 things without then realizing you have to get back to your other things in the day. Because Allah says in the Quran that His blessings you cannot enumerate the blessings of Allah. It's impossible to enumerate the blessings of Allah. So we have to be people who practice gratitude, rather than noticing, oh this is wrong with the government, this is wrong with this situation. Doesn't mean we don't work to fix things, but to feel like Alhamdulillah we have security. The two most critical blessings that we have as Allah says in Surah Al-Quraish, He tells the Quraish to worship the Lord of the house, that what did He do? Why should you worship the Lord of the house? Because He gave you food and He gave you security. He protected you from fear. Just those two blessings of Allah which Alhamdulillah anybody who lives in the United States, especially if we live in the comforts, in the suburbs we have those blessings, Alhamdulillah. Definitely most of us have food. We eat multiple times a day. We're not starving. We have water, clean water. We have running water. We don't have to work and go into a well, regularly and get out water that might be dirty. And we have security. We have a state of protection. You don't have people flying over, dropping bombs on us, regularly feeling insecure about being able to do anything. So many blessings that we have. Roads, I mean, if you go to the developing world, every time like a road is completed, I remember one time when I went to Pakistan with my parents and they were like super excited about a road. Like super excited about this highway and they were like this highway and it's done. And I was just like, it's just a highway. Like we have 580, we have 680, we have all these highways. Why are you guys so excited? And they were like, you have no idea how much of a accomplishment, how much of an accomplishment it is to complete a major infrastructure project like this in this type of country. And then as I grew older, I realized, oh yeah, it's actually really, really expensive. And it's a lot of work to do something like that. Just these basic things that we take for granted. We have to spend time being grateful. And it'll benefit you. Being grateful will benefit you and I. Because Allah says, if you are grateful, you would think that, you know, if you're grateful, Allah just keeps giving you what he's giving you, right? It's like a way to tie down the blessing. That's what you would think. But Allah doesn't say that. He doesn't say if you're grateful, I'll keep your blessings. Or He doesn't say that I forced upon you to be grateful. Otherwise, you know, this will happen. He says, if you are grateful, I will give you more to be grateful for. If you are grateful, I will give you more to be thankful for. La azidani nakum, I will increase you. So being grateful for what we have increases us in the blessing. And yet complaining about what we don't have or what is going wrong, increases the complaints. It increases the ability for the things that we're going to manifest in our life that will make us complain. So if we're grateful, we will have more to be grateful for. If we complain, Allah will give us more to complain about. The choice is yours, the choice is mine. We have to think about how we orient ourselves. And this is something that we have to realize in the wider context. Life is not supposed to be all peachy and all easy. But it's supposed to be a test. Allah regularly says in the Qur'an, He created death and life in order to test us. To see which one of you will be best indeed. And part of that is to test, are we going to be grateful or are we going to be ungrateful? Are we going to be patient or are we going to lose it? These are different traits manifest. Every single day, new tests, hopefully not, but every single day potentially, a test will come in your life. Pop quiz, small little thing or a major exam. You don't know what's going to come. And it's up to you. Do you respond with sugar? Do you respond with being in a state of, you know, yeah, this one thing is tough, but Alhamdulillah for all this. And even Alhamdulillah for this thing that's tough because Allah, it's coming from Allah. That the righteous, the awliya of Allah, they're grateful even for their tribulation because they realize it's coming from Allah. And they realize that you can be patient, but you can also be content with everything that is coming from your Lord. Let's try to implement that. I'll say this. Wa sattur Allah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. So let's think, how do we put this into practice? A few basic things. First and foremost, observe the different blessings that you and I have. Count that regularly. Try to make it a practice. Sit with your children, right? Instead of listening to the radio or music or something in the car, when you're on your drive home today or when you're driving, I mean kids, we're not going to school when you're driving to the Zoom classroom, I guess. But when you're going somewhere, right? Say, let's count all the blessings that we have. Watch, the kids will be able to enumerate more than us. They'll say, oh, Alhamdulillah, we have this tree, gives us oxygen, and then there's photosynthesis and there's this. I mean, just try to play, make these things into a fun game, a fun exercise for our families. Count the blessings before you sit down for dinner or for any meal, right? Say, Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. And then let's say, let's first show our gratitude to Allah for everything that He has given us. Not just Alhamdulillah that we have chicken salad today for dinner. No, no, Alhamdulillah that this bread that we have, we got this bread that somebody planted the wheat, that somebody went and picked the wheat, that somebody went and then delivered that all the way. And the processes happened such that it came to Safeway or Costco or wherever we got it from. And then we were able to get it, all of the different things that went in to that process, just so you and I could eat one meal. Alhamdulillah, reflect on that. Make that a practice. That's how you implement gratitude. So that's the front of the first thing that we can do. Rather than, ah, the food doesn't taste good, ah, the food's too spicy, ah, this, the types of things that we get into in this society because we have become a complaining people. Muslims were never complainers. We were not whiners. Whining and complaining is the station of the baby. That's what the, when the baby's growing up as a toddler, those are the types of things that they're gonna do. Whining is not the station of an adult. Certainly not the station of a man. Certainly not. So that's something we have to recognize. How much do we complain? What do we complain about? We decrease it ourselves and then we work as a family to build it. The second thing that we can do and to show gratitude is to use the blessings Allah has given us in His service and in His worship. You cannot claim to be grateful if you do not use the blessings He has given you in His work or in His service. So the eyes were created not to look at pornography, not to look at Instagram all day, not to look at Facebook and Snapchat, not to watch Netflix show after Netflix show after Netflix show. That's not why your eyes were created. Your eyes were created to gaze upon the countenance of Allah, to see the Messenger of Allah, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, to read Allah's book, to read beneficial things, to do beneficial things. Your mouth was created for a reason. It wasn't created to eat haram food. It wasn't created to say, to cut somebody out, to get angry at people all the time. That's not why it was created. It was created to bring about benefit, to say good things. Allah says in the Qur'an, say beneficial words, say good things. It was created to spread justice, spread goodness in the world. Our ears were not created to listen to this song and that song and just all of the different inputs that come into us. Our ears were created to listen to the speech of Allah. That doesn't mean somebody literally all they do all day is only listen to Qur'an or only do the Qur'an. That's not what I'm saying. But we avoid the things we're not supposed to be doing because that is not showing gratitude for the blessings. The feet were not created to walk to haram places or to go to haram places virtually. That's not why these limbs were created. The person who is grateful uses these limbs first to worship Allah, but then to serve Allah. You worship Allah and then you now think, okay, I got this down, inshallah. I'm gonna ask Allah for Tawfiq and I'm gonna work in his cause. I'm gonna try to do good things. We should recognize that we are at a time in this country. We were just talking about this in the last clip but we are at a time in this country that work needs to be done. One of the best ways to show our gratitude to Allah for all the blessings he's given us is to get up and to do the work, to get up and to spread this being, to spread morality, to spread goodness, to spread good character, to spread justice, to be active in whatever way possible. Not to just sit in our live our comfy lives as we see this country slowly declining, as we see more and more racism, as we see more and more negativity, as we see more and more and more degradation. How can we be people of gratitude and be people of this being if we just sit by and let all of those things happen? We have to be engaged. But first, the works begins at the heart level. We begin on working on ourselves because you can't get, if you look at most of the people who are in quote unquote the top in the political class, wherever, I mean, the concept of good character is gone. It's bad character either that manifests externally or it's manifesting behind the scenes most of the time. People of good character need to get up and to do the work and the Muslims are the people who were literally created for the purpose, for this purpose Allah says in the Quran that you were the best people ever sent forth to humanity. So show your gratitude. Let's show our gratitude to Allah by actually getting up and working in his cause and serving in his cause, remembering the blessings that he had bestowed upon us, using those blessings to worship him, using those blessings to facilitate the spread of this religion, to grow our families in knowledge and in goodness and in piety. And inshaAllah then Allah gives us Tawfiq. More and more work can be done because the one who is grateful, surely Allah will increase them. Surely Allah will give them Himmah. Surely Allah will give them ability to do more and more. Inna Allah wa Malaikatu yusallun ala nabiyya yuhalladina aamanu. Sallu alayhi wa sallim wa tussfim Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam Allahumma tullin mu'minina al-mu'mina wa al-muslimina al-muslima Ya'irahum ar-Rahimin Ya Allah we ask that you make us people of shukr, make us people of thicker, make us people who are focused on you and Ya Rabbi al-Alamin help us to stop complaining and stop seeing the negativity that is, that is in our life let us see everything is positive and let us trust in you inwardly and outwardly for everything. Wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallim wa barakah ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa nani wa sallim wa sallim alhamdulillahi wabarakatuh.