Ramadan Reflections: Day 7 Nafs Hack with Khalil Ismail

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Nafs Hack: Strategizing Gratefulness

Assalamu alaikum, and peace to everyone. This is Khalil Ismail with your Nafs Hack.

I wanted to talk about strategizing gratefulness today. I think one of the most important things, maybe the most important thing that we have that we can hold on to, regardless of what happens in this life, is gratefulness.

And what strikes me about gratefulness is that in the Qur’an when Allah (SWT) talks about the story of Shaytan wanting to take us off the path of worshipping him, and Shaytan basically says that he is going to get us from the left, from the right, from the back. He basically says that you find them not of the Shakireen or the people of Shukr or the people of gratefulness.

And that’s interesting to me because you know we live a life trying to worship God—one God—and not associating partners with him, and we’re trying to avoid shirk.

But when Shaytan talks about taking us off the path, he doesn’t say, I’m going to make them a Kafir. He doesn’t say I’m going to make them worship other Gods first. He says I’m going to make them ungrateful.

And maybe it is that because once we become ungrateful, we become open to all of those other vices. Be intentional about being  grateful and insha’Allah you will be forgiven for the hereafter.

A couple of tips for that. One, keep Allah (SWT) on your tongue at all times of the day. The second thing is to give to those who have less than you. The third thing is to listen to people who you think can give you nothing or no less than you, and be in the habit of that. The fourth thing is to try to pursue what you are passionate in.

God gave us a brain. He he tells us to use our understanding, to use our Aql. We use that, and we strategize to get jobs; we strategize to get degrees. We strategize pretty much for everything that we want. So, it’d be good to strategize for things that are spiritual and things that Allah (SWT) will be pleased with as well.

This is Khalil Ismail with Islamic Relief, and that is my Ramadan reflection.