Thanksgiving Day: Thank Someone, For You

'If you are grateful, I will, surely, bestow more favors on you…” (Quran, 14:8). This is the Islamic view of being thankful, and what the benefits of being grateful are. There have been numerous medical and scientific studies about the effects of having a positive spirit and how it can lead to greater success in the outcome of events as well as the recuperative impact of such a mindset.

In the same way whether it be being grateful to God, our family, our community, or anyone else, the outcome for these other elements of life would probably be the same as those scientific and behavioral studies. When one does not appreciate and acknowledge what they have at the time that they should, they often find that they end up losing whatever little good they may have and fall further into perpetual misery. Falling into the trap of being ungrateful and not appreciating what we have, or neglecting those around us thinking it’s someone else's job to make us happy makes a person more miserable and spreads misery all around.

The benefit of looking for things to be grateful about has one other positive outcome, it makes us want to go out and do something good for others as well. So let's hope this Thanksgiving Day we
can not only be grateful for everything we have, but go one step further and remember this and benefit the community around us.

The Islamic concept for gratitude can be summed up with a saying of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be on him) He said, “Whoever is not grateful to the people, he is not grateful to God”, and all other acts of worship essentially become obsolete as such.