Gratitude for Allah's blessings

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.
May prayer and peace be upon the noblest of the Messengers, upon his family and upon all his companions.

Gratitude for the blessings of Allah
Gathering of 30 October 2015

Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkari said last Friday in his lesson:

Allah – says: “And be grateful for the favours of Allah, if it is Him that you worship.” [16:114]. In this verse is therefore the command to thank Him. But how can one really thank Him?

To show gratitude for the blessings He has granted us is not to repeat a formula a certain number of times with the mouth, with no reality in the heart… rather, the way to show gratitude for Allah’s blessings is by giving the greatest importance to these favours and by holding them sacred. And the more importance the blessings of Allah have in us, the more we shall realise the state of gratitude. The Prophet prayed every night until his feet cracked, and when he was asked why he inflicted such hardship upon himself, he answered: “Should I not be a grateful servant?”.

Gratitude comes from the heart, not from the tongue, and it is quite possible for a servant to spend his nights repeating “al-hamdu lillahi wa sh-shukru lillah” without ever truly showing gratitude for the blessing of his Lord.
From this comes the injunction not to waste the blessings with which Allah has favoured us: “And do not spend wastefully. Indeed, the wasteful are brothers of the devils, and ever has Satan been to his Lord ungrateful” [17:27].

O aspirant, if your Vision of the divine Light (which is the greatest of all the blessings that can be granted to a man) is realised without your giving it importance, then know that you have no share in the state of gratitude towards your Lord… even if you were to pronounce it with the tongue, in sujud, at least 200 times a day. Then do not expect to see any evolution take place in you, nor to rise spiritually towards the reality of the Spirit: “Your Lord proclaimed: ‘If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favour]; but if you are ungrateful, indeed, My punishment is severe’” [14:7].

And know, O aspirant, that whatever happens, you will never be able to show gratitude as it should be shown. The Prophet referred to this incapacity (‘ajz) proper to the creature before the Creator, saying: “I cannot praise You as You deserve; You are as You have praised Yourself.” And Allah – says: “They have not appraised Allah as He should be appraised (Haqqa qadrihi)” [6:91].

In this is an indication that despite all the importance (ta‘zim) one may give to what comes from Allah, we are incapable of appraising Him as He should be appraised (taqdir). The nafs that least love death are the nafs that most hate the Shaykh. The latter always contradicts people’s nafs, until they reach the knowledge of who they truly are.

Nothing in the world brings the aspirant closer to Allah than gatherings in the company of an ‘Arif billah: this is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all acts of worship. If you do not have this chance, the only thing that could approach the value of these gatherings in terms of merit would be to withdraw and practise dhikr day and night, exclusively and without stopping… but of course you are incapable of that.

The Prophet said: “Deeds are only by intentions.” So ask yourself: why do you keep company with a Shaykh? What do you really expect from this companionship? The Knowledge of Allah… or something relating to this lower world?

Once you have found the answer to this, you must know that the only thing that can let you triumph on the path of Sufism is to always keep a good opinion of your Shaykh. As soon as a bad opinion comes to dwell in your heart towards him, although he has never had one against you… know then that there is no good in you.

Know also that the Shaykh was not raised up for people in order to lead each of them to ma‘rifa, the Knowledge of Allah… Of course not; how many people are mistaken about this! The Shaykh is there for one single purpose: to make you know yourself.

If you are a believer and a beloved of Allah, the Shaykh will let you remove the veils that prevent you from realising it… And if you are a hypocrite, the Shaykh will make you aware of it. And if you take flight and decide to leave the path of Allah, know that it is not the Shaykh you are fleeing, but rather your own image reflected in him. In the Hadith: “The believer (al-mu’min) is the mirror of his brother.” What is meant here is al-mu’min, translated as the believer, which designates above all the Man who has fully realised himself in the divine Name al-Mu’min. It is thus an extremely high spiritual degree, so do not imagine you see in just any Muslim the authentic mirror that lets you know the reality of yourself!

The ‘Arif billah is a Sun, but people do not see him because this Sun is hidden by clouds. If the clouds dispersed, and if this Sun appeared to everyone’s eyes, everyone would recognise him. But so it is that when Allah – wills good for one of His servants, He lifts a part of these veils and lets him see… and conversely when He wishes to keep one of His servants away, He adds to his veils and makes him persist in a state of blindness more or less deep.