|
THE
DUTY OF THANKSGIVING
In
the Name of God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate
There
is nothing that does not glorify Him
with praise.
The
Quran of Miraculous Expression urges in
reiterated phrases like,
Will
they not be thankful? We will
reward the thankful. If you are
thankful, I will give you more.
Nay, but God do you serve, so be
among the thankful.
that
what the All-Merciful Creator asks most
importantly of His servants is
thanksgiving. In the Wise Criterion -
the Quran - He insistently calls them to
thanksgiving and, proclaiming that
unthankfulness means the denial of
bounties, reproaches them severely, in
Sura al-Rahman, no less than thirty-one
times, asking, Then, which of your Lord’s
bounties do you deny?
The
most important result of creation is
thanksgiving
Like
the Wise Quran, this universe, of which
the Quran is a microcosm, also
demonstrates that the most important
result of creation is thanksgiving. For
we can discern with a little attention
that the universe has been arranged in a
way to arouse thanksgiving. Everything
in the universe calls for thanksgiving.
It seems that the most important fruit
of this ‘tree’ of creation is
thanksgiving, and it is also
thanksgiving which is the best ‘product’
of this factory of the universe. This is
so, because the universe has been
created in the form of a circle, the
center of which is life. The design of
the whole creation is directed towards
life; everything in it serves life and
works for the provision of its
necessities. This means that the Creator
of the universe drew up life from the
universe.
Then,
we also see that God has created the
worlds of living beings again in
circular forms and put man in the
center. The purposes for the creation of
living beings are concentrated toward
him; the other beings have all been
subjected to man’s service. This means
that the Majestic Creator has chosen man
out of living beings and made him rule
over them.
Human
kingdom, as well as the world of
animals, has been designed in a
circular form, in the center of
which there is providence.
Again
we witness that the human kingdom, as
well as the world of animals, has also
been designed in a circular form, in the
center of which there is providence. The
Creator has inculcated in mankind and
animals love for providence and urges
them to work for it. He has made
providence a treasury so vast and rich
that it encompasses infinite kinds of
bounties. In order that mankind and
animals should recognize the taste of
only one of those kinds, He has equipped
the tongue with the power of
distinguishing as many tastes as there
are edibles and drinks. That being so,
providence is the most manifest, most
comprehensive, most curious and most
pleasing reality in the universe.
Then,
as everything has been concentrated
around providence and directed towards
it, providence itself comes through
thanksgiving, subsists on it and points
to it. For the need and desire for
providence are a natural kind of
thanksgiving, and the pleasure and
satisfaction coming from providence are
an unconscious thanksgiving, both common
to all animate beings. However, man
changes the nature of those kinds of
thanksgiving through misguidance and
unbelief and drifts from thanksgiving to
associating partners with God.
The
beautiful forms of bounties, and the
tastes and smells they have, are
invitations to thanksgiving and, by
arousing desire in living beings and
directing them through desire to
appreciation of, and respect for,
providence, these forms, tastes and
smells urge living beings to
thanksgiving, animals through
disposition, and human beings with the
tongue and actions. And they make living
beings experience the greatest pleasure
and satisfaction through thanksgiving
itself.
That
is, by showing the most pleasurable and
permanent grace and favor of the
All-Merciful, All-Generous Owner of the
treasuries of Compassion behind the
temporary enjoyment of bounties, they
make man experience a permanent pleasure
of Paradise while here in the world.
Nevertheless, while being, through
thanksgiving, an invaluable and rich
treasury, providence is reduced to
almost nothing through unthankfulness.
If
the sense of taste possessed by the
tongue is used for the sake of God, that
is, if used to distinguish the kinds of
providence with the intention of
performing the duty of thanksgiving, it
becomes a thankful examiner and a highly
esteemed supervisor of the numberless
treasures of the infinite Mercy of God.
If, by contrast, it is used for the
carnal self without considering the
thanks due to the Provider, then the
sense of taste is reduced to being a
watchman of the factory of the abdomen
or the doorman of the workshop of the
stomach. As that servant of providence
is reduced, because of unthankfulness,
to that rank, so too, the nature of
providence itself, together with its
other servants, like air, light and
water, is likewise reduced to the lowest
rank, and assumes a quality contrary and
opposed to the Wisdom of the Creator of
the universe.
Thanksgiving
is recognized by contentment, thrift,
consent and gratitude
Thanksgiving
is recognized by contentment, thrift,
consent and gratitude, while
unthankfulness by greed, waste,
ingratitude and consuming without
distinguishing between the lawful and
unlawful.
Indeed,
greed, besides being unthankfulness, is
both a cause of depravity and a means of
humiliation. It might even be said that
the ant, that blessed animal having a
social life, is trodden under foot
because of greed. For it tries to
collect thousands of grains without
contentment when a few might suffice it.
The bee, on the other hand, flies over
heads due to - so to speak - its
contentment, and offers, by God’s
command, its honey to human beings.
The
Divine Name, the All-Merciful, which is
the greatest Name of the Sacred Divine
Essence coming after God - His proper
Name and the greatest of the Greatest
Names - relates to providence. The first
and most manifest meaning of the
All-Merciful is the All-Provider. It is
through thanksgiving that one can secure
a connection with that Name.
There
are many kinds of thanksgiving, the
most comprehensive of which is the
daily prescribed prayers
Thanksgiving
contains a sincere belief and a genuine
declaration of God’s Unity. For the
one who has eaten an apple and then
uttered, All praise and thanks be to
God, proclaims through that thanksgiving
that that apple is a direct souvenir of
the hand of Power and a gift from the
treasury of His Mercy, and thereby
ascribes everything, whether particular
of universal, to God’s Hand of Power
and sees in everything the manifestation
of His Mercy. Thus, he declares, through
thanksgiving, a true belief and a
sincere acceptance of God’s Unity.
I
will point out only one aspect of the
loss which a heedless man is certain to
suffer because of unthankfulness.
When
a man thanks God for something delicious
he has eaten, that thing will produce,
through thanksgiving, a light and become
a fruit of Paradise. It gives, besides
its material pleasure, a spiritual
enjoyment still greater and permanent
because it causes man to reflect on it
as a favor of Divine Mercy.
Thus,
any food given by God as a bounty, sends
to the higher, incorporeal worlds its
spiritual outcome from thankfulness, and
itself is digested to nourish the body
and then excreted to be re-transformed
into elements in the soil. Without
thanksgiving, the material pleasure
given by that food ultimately results in
grief because of its consequential
disappearance, and the food itself
becomes waste matter. Consumable
bounties produce permanent pleasures and
yield permanent fruits through
thanksgiving, but without thanksgiving,
they become the lowest form of the worst
nature because, in the view of a
heedless, unthankful man, they are no
more than things to be eaten and then
excreted.
Providence
is something deserving love. While this
love is elevated, through thanksgiving,
to the rank of a sublime, permanent
love, love of God, the love of heedless
and misguided people for providence is
of animal kind and nature. Consider,
then, how great a loss the people of
misguidance and heedlessness are in!
Among
the species of living creatures, man
needs providence more than the others.
God Almighty has created man as a mirror
reflecting all of His Names, as a
miracle of Power having the faculties
with which to weigh and recognize the
contents of the treasuries of His Mercy,
and as a vicegerent on the earth endowed
with the faculties to measure even the
subtlest manifestations of all of His
Names. For this reason, He has made him
needy of all kinds of material and
spiritual providence. Only through
thanksgiving can man, a being of such
comprehensive nature, attain the rank of
being the ‘best pattern’ of
creation, which is the highest of the
ranks. Without thanksgiving, he commits
a most dire crime and falls to the
lowest of the low.
In
short: There are four pillars of the way
of being a worshipping and (thereby)
beloved servant of God, as stated in the
following:
In
the way depending on awareness of
one’s impotence before God, four
things are essential;
They
are, O beloved one,
acknowledgement of one’s
absolute impotence and poverty,
and absolute thanksgiving and
absolute zeal.
Thus,
the most essential of these pillars is
thanksgiving.
O
God, make us, through Your Mercy,
among those who are thankful, O the
Most Compassionate of the
Compassionate!
Glory
be to You! We have no knowledge save
what You have taught us. Surely You
are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
O
God, bestow blessings and peace on
our master Muhammad, the lord of the
thankful and the praising, and on
all of his family and his
Companions! Amen!
The
last of their call is saying, All
praise be to God.
|
|
