Gratitude is The Essence of “Tawheed”

We’ve all been missing out on the essence of our lives as Muwahhideen. If you’re reading this now, it means you’re able to see the shapes written before you, and your mind is intelligent enough to decode, analyze and perceive language. You’ve just inhaled and exhaled normally without the aid of any machine or oxygen supply. And, in the last 20 seconds that you’ve spent reading the above, your blood has taken a stroll throughout your entire vascular system. Did you notice any of that?

To be “muwahhed” without acknowledgement and gratitude is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.  Allah has granted us a brain, and luminosity that distinguishes us from all other creatures. Our creator bestowed life upon us to fully live, to thrive and achieve. Isn’t that a miracle we can be thankful for?

Imagine not thanking a friend for doing you a favour, helping you, lending you a hand. That would be really rude! Then what about the source who gave you bounteously and lovingly? What we can practice, for our own sake, is remembrance, acknowledgement, gratitude. Without these practices, our “Tawheed” would be reckoned as Nothing. As humans, we naturally prefer comfort to fatigue, ignorance to remembrance, and fun to strain, that’s why we don’t remember and value our Creator’s blessings.

In his book, Al-Amir Al-Sayyid Jamal Al-Din Abdullah Al-Tanoukhi, remarked upon the concept of Gratitude, saying (paraphrased): Gratitude tightly grips the existing blessing and grabs the non-existent one. (شكر النعمة قيد موجودها وصيد مفقودها)

The supreme resource is what most of us call “God” or “Mother Nature” or “The Universe”. Ultimately, we are all connected to this higher power that we are unable to precisely define. It is breathtaking how organized and tidy the creations of our higher resource. In each passing second, we are breathing, thinking, moving, feeling for a reason and a resulting effect. Isn’t it crazy how our lives are perfectly painted by a single, clean, and colourful brush? This masterpiece is us, and all that is around us, and all that is inside us.

There are billions of people spread across the world with billions more thoughts, dreams, and emotions. Billions of creatures fighting to survive. Billions of galaxies moving in the same exact motion in the seen and unseen universe. There may be other unknown worlds that are as neatly and gracefully organized as ours.

Some have approached me saying, “I believe in no God!” I reply silently and observe the masterpiece that they, themselves, aren’t able to enjoy. The food within reach, perfect eyesight, aware mind, good health, warm home, loving parents, playful siblings, mobility, work, are a few of the blessings they unwarily take for granted.

Just consider the following statistics.

• 65.6 million people worldwide are forcibly displaced from the “warm homes” we take for granted.¹
• 285 million people worldwide are deprived of “eyesight” that we take for  granted.²
• 153 million people worldwide are striving for life without the “presence of their parents” that we take for granted.³

Let us remember that the things we take for granted, someone else is praying for. It is only with gratitude and acknowledgement that life becomes rich. My fellow Druze, let us challenge ourselves, from this day forward, by being grateful for one thing every day, and taking a moment to appreciate it. You can even write it down and go back to your list days later to note all of your countless blessings. Only then, would you recognize the essence of “Tawheed”.

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugee_crisis
2. https://adoption.org/many-orphans-worldwide
3. https://www.who.int/blindness/globaldatafinalforweb.pdf