How to be grateful to Allah

27/07/2010| IslamWeb

Question

I often hear that if a believer praises God and makes shukr, then God will bestow more upon the believers, and increase what they have. What is the best way to make shukr?

 Fatwa

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

Being grateful and thankful for the bounties Allah Bestows on a person is a means of increasing them. Allah Says (what means): {And [remember] when your Lord proclaimed, “If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favor].''}[Quran 14:7].

Being grateful to Allah can be with one's heart, tongue and limbs. Being grateful to Him with one's heart is by submissiveness and humbleness, and with one's tongue by glorifying Him and acknowledging His Bounties, and with the limbs by using them in His Obedience. All this can be encompassed in performing acts of obedience and refraining from committing prohibitions. Therefore, whoever performs acts of obedience and religious obligations, and refrains from committing prohibitions has indeed been grateful to Allah. The more a person gets near to Allah and does more supererogatory acts of worship, like optional fasting, prayers and charity, and so forth, the more he is grateful to Allah.

In addition to this, there is a special way of being grateful for every particular bounty. For instance, one should be grateful for the bounty of money by spending it in what pleases Allah and not spending it in what incurs His Wrath; the bounty of health should be thanked in the same way and so forth.

Allah Knows best.