How to thank Allah in Islam?

How to thank Allah? Say "Alhamdulillah" !

When you want to give thanks to Allah, saying "Alhamdulillah" will suffice.

Thanking Allah seems an easy task, but most of the times negativity and our ego keeps us from giving thanks deep from our heart. If your thanks is shallow and not real, you are not going to impress Allah. Let's be mindful that Allah is appreciative (shakoor) and He loves His praise (a genuine one), not empty words that have no feelings at all.

Step 1) Tell Allah why He deserves your thanks

"O Allah, you have control over everything and you create every single thing. So all the thanks and credits go to you. In order to create that one single blessing (health), one must have infinite knowledge (physical, spiritual, cells, atoms, DNA, creation of blood, air and oxygyn in it), unlimited power and mercy. Allah is the only one who had the power to give you good health.

Step 2) Tell Allah that you have no role in getting that blessing/favour

If you cannot create the simplest creation like blinking of your eye or movement of your fingers because it requires infinite intelligence and unlimited power (there are unlimited number of physical and meta-physical processes involved in a simple act of creation of such as blinking of your eye). So can you be responsible for making that blessing occur? Not at all. It doesn't make sense to associate that blessing to a limited creature like human who can't even create itself.

Step 3) Tell Allah that if He didn't do you favour, you could have been into much worse condition
It is possible for things to get worse. If something is bad in your life, it could have got worse as we are not special beings who should always for preferential treatment for no reason. We fool ourselves into thinking that "we are entitled to get what we want or we are entitled to get what we don't have right now". If we don't focus on could-be-worse scenario or worse possibilities and our vulnerabilities, Allah will give us more to complain about as this is what we have been wanting by not doing a positive assessment of blessings.

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 Positive assessment of a blessing can be easily done by creating the feeling of losing the blessings/favours we are enjoying right now. If you want to give thanks for your hands, imagine the scene where you lose both your hands and focus on the difficulties that come as a result. Dwell on it for a few minutes, and you have created the strong feelings of thankfulness for Allah and His mercy. See yourself in bandage and feel the helplessness without your hands. Feel how hard your life has become without your hands. Now, get back to the reality and have a sigh of relief that you didn't lose your hands. How merciful Allah is  ! Just give this technique a try and you will be shocked to know how powerfully it works to create intense feelings of gratitude.

Step 4) Tell Allah how this blessing has benefited you

If you are wanting to give thanks to Allah for your new job. Tell Allah how this job new job is going to keep you away from debt. Say "Alhamdulillah" every single time you think of the benefits. Tell Allah how much you needed this job because you want to learn and grow. Say Alhamdulillah. Tell Allah this job will help you put food on the table and help the needy and poor. Say Alhamdulillah for this one particular benefit. You can come up with literally hundred of more benefits of this blessing (new job).

Why most gratitude practices and methods don't work?

Gratitude is becoming more and more popular in the area of self development and more and more gurus are jumping in to train people how to practice gratitude to stay happy, healthy and wealthy.

But most of these practices don't produce the desired results for most of the people who join these courses or seminars.

The reason is simple: These gratitude methods fail to change your vibrations. When a gratitude method fails to cause a shift in your vibrations, you will not attract what you desire because you are not in harmony of that goal. Emotionless gratitude is not real gratitude. This is fooling yourself into thinking that you are grateful

Why these gratitude methods don't change my vibrations?

These methods are heavily focused on focusing on benefits only. A human mind is constantly looking for more so naturally it becomes extremely hard to feel gratitude on existing benefits and favors you are blessed with.

What works best?

Looking at blessings/things from a could-be-worse perspective is the only way to create intense feelings of gratitude. Imagining a worse possible scenario for a couple of seconds on any blessing will do the trick.

 Put it to test now and see for yourself how could-be-worse-gratitude-method changes your feelings and then vibrations: Intense gratitude on your ability to walk/run and legs in general

Imagine yourself in a hospital bed following an accident that broke one of your legs. Visualize a bit by making a mental film and feel what it is like to lose a leg. Imagine all the troubles that lay ahead as a result of your not being able to walk now. You can't go to job. You can't walk or run or jog. Now stop the mental film and return to reality. You will notice that your feelings about your legs have now changed. You will notice that you are now paying focused attention to the importance of your legs. As a result of this, you have raised your vibrations.

Why this simple method caused a big change in your vibrations and feelings?

Because you made the right assessment of that blessing (importance of your legs) by shifting your focus on a scenario where you have lost one of your legs. When you finally come out of that mental film (of worse possible scenario), your mind shifts back to reality and it convinces itself that your legs are intact. Here your mind processes, in a millisecond, all the benefits linked to your legs (your walking ability, your feet, your ability to perform day-to-day tasks, your ability to play and run, etc). 

Importance of Gratitude in Islam - an unusual story of a villager who impressed Umar RA

Importance of gratitude in Islam: Gratitude is often overlooked and most of us do not even care to realise its importance as we keep dwelling on getting more and more, yet mental peace never becomes a reality. This Urdu story of a villager during khilafa of Hazrat Umar RA is very inspiring and one that grabbed Ameer ul Momineen's attention. Watch the video.

Gratitude in Islam, Allah ka shukar ada kerne ka faida importance

Practising gratitude (shukar ada kerna) is straightforward and simple, but we usually get caught up in daily life that keeps us from focusing on Allah's blessings and favours on us. As a result of ignoring and not acknowledging Allah's blessings we get further and further away from becoming grateful (shakir). 

Quran verses on gratitude and thankfulness

Gratitude has been mentioned in Quran in several verses and there are obvious reasons why Allah has stressed the importance of shukr (gratitude). I have listed quite a few Quran verses that mention/discuss gratitude and shukr. The list of verses will keep getting updated from time to time.

Quran verses on gratitude and thankfulness (shukr) 

1. Surah Luqman: Verse no. 12 

Gratitude increases blessings of Allah and if we are ungrateful towards what Allah has gifted us, we are giving the Creator a signal that we no longer want these blessings from Him, which eventually attracts His anger. Category: Quran verses that talk about gratitude and thankfulness, Quran verses on shukr (thanks, being grateful).