Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. It's nice to see you all here. I really enjoyed Ustadh Ruhi's presentation and I'm really looking forward to the paper inshallah, as I hope all of you will do inshallah. Bismillah wa salatu wa salam ala rasulullah. I want to focus my portion of this talk inshallah on really three main aspects. First, just the general nature of shukr and how I like to call it the superfood for the soul. We know about so many superfoods in this world, but really subhanAllah I believe shukr is a superfood for the soul. I want to talk about that briefly. I also wanted to talk about how shukr can bring so much positivity in our life. In our spiritual domain, in our daily life, and really contribute to overall well-being, overall positive relationships. I wanted to talk about how shukr directly brings upon positivity, how that can influence your life. And finally, how the concept of gratitude can really help us in times of darkness. It's so powerful that it's a form of ibadah that is good for us. All of our ibadah are good for us. And when we remember that, it's that much more inspiring and motivating to make sure that we invest in something that Allah has made obligatory for us, that is so extremely beneficial for us in so many aspects of our lives. So first I wanted to start off with what Allah says in the Quran. And he says, This is in Surah Ibrahim. And it's so powerful. Basically Allah is telling us that if you are grateful towards me, I will increase you. Increase you in what? It is a general statement. I will increase you, as said the Ruhi mentioned, in all aspects. In wealth, in your health, in your business, in your children, in your dunya, in your akhira. Allah will increase you. That is a promise from Allah.
So first and foremost, this is something that we should remember as making part of our daily life, inshallah. Why do I call this a superfood for the soul? When you make a conscientious effort to be grateful for everything, Alhamdulillah I woke up and today I can breathe. How many of you have had COVID? It's not a shame, I've had it. It's painful. It's painful to breathe. It's painful to even just get up. So when you're not sick, and even when you're sick, you remember these things. These basic things we take for granted. I'm breathing on my own, I'm blinking, I can use my hands. All of our faculties, and that's just in our physical. What about the things that we wake up to in comfort, big and small. Even like having socks, subhanAllah. There's drives just collecting socks for the winter. Such small things that we don't realize, subhanAllah, unless what? You don't have them. This is when you notice it. So why is it a superfood for the soul? Because it permeates through all aspects of your life. It will facilitate sabr, it will facilitate patience, it will facilitate contentment, it will facilitate empathy. All the things that Ustadh Ruhi mentioned. When you have sabr in your life and you make it something conscientious, you make an active commitment to doing this every day. Not just as a well-being, you know the well-being gurus tell you, okay it's good, it will bring goodness into your life. It's coming from Allah subhanAllah. You are bringing goodness from Allah subhanAllah. He is giving it to you, He is willing it into your life. That shukr makes all of those other aspects, sincerity, confidence in yourself, optimism, gratitude, facilitates all of that. And it allows us to see life in its bigger picture. We'll talk about this more in times of darkness.
What happens when things get tough? We start to focus on this aspect that's really hurting us. And we focus on that. But what does shukr do? It allows us to pull back and get the POV where you get to see the bigger picture. This is why shukr is so important and is really the quality that emanates all other good in our life from this quality. And another aspect I really want to talk about is how it benefits our overall mental and physical well-being. We have a mashallah in the audience, I'm shy to speak in front of our neuroscientist, Dr. Marwa Azab. She's here from Los Angeles and she's amazing mashallah. One of the things that she talks about, one of the things that we know is that gratitude subhanAllah has a direct physical, scientific, proven scientifically response in your brain. It allows the release of the happy chemicals, the feel good chemicals, dopamine and serotonin. It happens, right? So it's not only a spiritual benefit to our life, there is a physical benefit as well. We feel good when we are grateful. And you make this a daily practice and you make sure that you incorporate gratitude in every aspect of your life. Well, if it's going to increase the good feelings, what do you think is going to help you decrease? Anxiety and depression. And when we remember that Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam, over 1400 years ago, would make dua for 8 things, seeking protection from Allah for 8 things. What were the first 2? Allahumma inni ya'udhu bika min al-hammi wal-hazan. From what? From anxiety and depression. From worry and sadness. Right? And the dua continues on, but I want to focus on those 2. This is a common human condition.
It is a common human condition to be overcome by worry and by sadness. So, aside from making dua for Allah to help us in that, gratitude greatly decreases these focuses on the things that we are worried about, either in the future or that we are sad about what happened in the past. So, when we engage in shukr, it is really emanating into all aspects of our life. So, what else happens? Okay, it increases our positivity. Increases our positive outlook. And that affects you not only in the people that you interact with, you are grateful and you are having a positive outlook in your different places that you go about in everyday and your everyday situations as well. So, I am going to quote the same hadith that Ustadh Ruhi mentioned when she said, whoever does not thank people has not thanked Allah. مَنْ لَا يَشْكُرَ النَّاسَ لَا يَشْكُرْ رَبَّهِ That whoever hasn't thanked the people hasn't thanked Allah. There is a direct correlation. Allah sends the good people in your life. Sends strangers, loved ones, people to support you. Sometimes they come in and out of your life in a moment and they have helped you. So, we thank them and we are grateful towards them and this is a way of showing our gratitude towards Allah. And what is really interesting, there is a study that was done for successful companies. They showed that being able to hang on to employees, not having high employee turnover, people that just come in and then they leave. What was one of the greatest qualities? That positive comments from management towards their staff, it was at a ratio of about a little over 5 to 1. A little over 5 to 1. It's directly proving to us what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala already told us. And what Prophet Muhammad ﷺ told us. That being grateful towards others brings more good. It makes people happy, makes you happy.
It increases the positivity in our relationships. And this is not only in work. This is also in your home life, in parenting. What are we taught in terms of positive parenting? The more that you are able to point out the positive that your children are doing, you praise them for something good that they are doing. As opposed to keep telling them the wrong that they are doing. This is wrong, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you bring in the trash? Why didn't you do the dishes? Instead, Jazakumullahu khair for helping your sister. I am so proud of you that you prayed on time. These are the things that we want to be doing. That 5 to 1 ratio. Same thing in our marriage. Having this concept of shukr in our marriage will bring more goodness. It will foster the love, it will foster the relationship. And this is in the studies too done on marriage. But again, have a high ratio of positive comments, good comments. Praising your spouse for things that you take for granted, also that we take for granted. It will improve the love and the quality of the relationship. Same thing in the classroom with teachers as well. The more that they are able to encourage and praise the students, subhanallah. The more positive behavior that you will see, the more that children are able to learn and adults alike. Subhanallah. So that's increasing the positivity and the optimism in our life. Now what about in times of darkness? There is a beautiful hadith, my favorite hadith. Where Prophet Muhammad ﷺ says, عَجْبٍ لِأَمْرِ الْمُؤْمِنِ إِنَّ أَمْرَهُ كُلَّهُ خَيْرٌ وَلَيْسَ ذَلِكَ لِأَحَدًا إِلَّا لِلْمُؤْمِنِ إِنْ أَصَابَتْهُ صَرَّآءُ شَكَرَ فَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُ وَإِنْ أَصَابَتْهُ ضَرَّآءُ صَبَرَ فَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُ Amazing is the affair of the believer, for there is good for him or her in every matter.
And this is not the case except for the believer. So this special quality is only for the believer. And what is it? That if he or she is blessed with something good, then he or she thanks Allah and it is good for him. And if he is harmed, then he or she is patient and this is good for him. Subhanallah. So in this case, it doesn't necessarily mean, like, look, Allah, if this were to happen, there's an accident or there's a death of a loved one. We don't have to say, thank you God for this calamity. But we can still praise Him. We can be patient in this time and we can make sure that we are still grateful for all of the positive things that are happening in our life. This is the amazing quality of the believer that we have learned from Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. I like to think of it as grateful and, and not grateful but. And I personally experienced this myself. I just wanted to share, you know, a few years back, something had really hit me and it affected me greatly. And this is the first time in my life I had ever had heart palpitations due to this thing that was really upsetting me. It was just, I think about something, about this, this thing that happened and my heart would just, da, da, da, da. Now I think I finally understand possibly what kind of a panic attack feels like. But it would be something really, I was really shocked by it, by having this sensation. And I remember having this feeling and I went outside and I looked up at the sky. It sounds like a movie moment but really this is what happens, subhanAllah. And I literally looked up at the sky and I looked at the clouds and I said, ya Allah, I'm grateful. I'm grateful and wallahi subhanAllah I caught myself and I said, but, I said, but this thing is so heavy. And then at that moment I caught myself and I was like, subhanAllah, you can't say but. This is difficult, oh Allah help me in this thing and I'm so grateful to you for all of this other ni'mah that you, that you've given me, all of these other blessings.
So it's not thank you Allah but I have this problem and I have this problem and I need your help. That is the quality of shukr, that is the power of shukr. Is that even in our darkest moments we are reminded to thank Allah subhanAllah for all the positive that we have, all of the blessings. And Allah subhanAllah told us, he said that if you were to try to count all the blessings you would not be able to do so and that is absolutely true. There's trillions of cells in your body that are just doing all the behind the scenes work. Repairing cells, growing things, detoxifying, recovering, growing, new neural pathways being made in your brain with positive experiences. All of this is happening and we're not even aware of it. Do we make even shukr for all of these processes that happen behind the scenes? Just a reminder of the complexity that Allah subhanAllah has put in our life. So Allah subhanAllah tells us we would not even be able to be thankful for all of them. There's so many, there's too many. So there's no excuse for us to say well I ran out of things. You know I already said yesterday I'm thankful for Allah, I'm thankful for my faith and I'm thankful for my health. Think of something new, think of something specific every single day and this is a way that we can really institute this quality of shukr in our life. To make sure that we bring positivity and to make sure that it helps us bring us up so that we don't sink down to the level of shaitan where he will find us weak in our times of darkness. And I wanted to close with this final thing from a wise sage, Ibn Atta'ilal Eskandari. He said something so beautiful and he said save yourself from worrying, save yourself from worrying. Someone else already took care of your affairs for you, someone else already took care of your affairs for you and who is that someone else? Allah subhanAllah, you know he wants us to think.
So when we're instituting this quality of shukr in our life, it will help us in so many ways and it will stave off the burden of worrying and feeling sad and being upset over some of the calamities that we have. And inshallah we can bring that contentment and positivity in our lives. May Allah subhanAllah make us of the grateful, may Allah subhanAllah protect us from the deception of shaitan and keep us on the straight path. And may he gather all of us into janatal firdaws inshallah on the day of judgement inshallah. Jazakumullah khairan.
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