Be among the grateful

https://youtu.be/WWVxwb5wCdg ⚠️ AI-Generated Content: This transcription was automatically generated using AI. Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. Wasalaatu wasalaamu ala isharafil amliyai wal mursaleen Muhammad wa Rasululahi sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallamu wa tashreeen wa an kaseeran wa kaseeran wa badhu. My brothers and sisters, you can see here the temperature right now is about minus six Celsius. I am in Mitinigyu Park on my walk and you can see the beautiful patterns of the ice that is covered this stream. The stream flows through the park and goes out and eventually reaches the Connecticut rivers. But you can see this amazing, fantastic patterns of the ice and how the ice crystals form and all that has to do with the differential temperature of the water. First of all, the whole stream doesn't freeze solid. What actually happens is that the water right on the top which is in contact with the cold air freezes first. And when the ice forms of a particular thickness, then below that the water doesn't freeze so it continues to flow. So that's one of the interesting things about water, apart from many other interesting things. So now that Allah SWT said, Allah SWT said, Allah SWT said, So in one case Allah SWT said that you cannot count the blessings of Allah SWT no matter how hard you try. Even beings are, they are jalim and they deny to their transgressors in their deniers of the mercy of Allah. And in the other case Allah SWT said, That you cannot count the blessings of Allah SWT. There are so many but Allah is the most forgiving, the most merciful. So Allah is saying effectively that even though sadly the nature of a human being is such and we ask Allah to change our nature and to make us on those who are the Shakiri and those who are grateful to Him. Despite this and despite the fact that Allah has blessed us and we do not count those blessings. We cannot even count the blessings so obviously we do not express gratitude for them because the idea of the blessings of Allah and the idea of being aware of them is not simply to count them, keep a list. But to thank Allah SWT for everyone, You gave me this, you gave me this, you gave me this and making shukar of Allah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. We don't do that but Allah SWT said despite that Allah is the most forgiving, the most merciful. I always remind myself of the beautiful hadith of Rasulullah SAW who said that if a man wakes up, if a person wakes up, secure in his property, meaning that he has a house to live in, he has a roof over his head, secure in his property, secure in his health, his body works and he has enough food for the day, enough food for the day, enough food for the day, enough food for the day. If a man wakes up in that man, meaning man or woman wakes up in that state, then Rasulullah SAW said it is as if the entire world and everything in it has been gathered for him. Right? How can he want anything more than that? Now imagine, this is the level of gratitude that we are expected to have, that if we have, if we are secure in our dwellings, secure in our homes and we have our health is fine, Alhamdulillah, and we have enough food to eat, then what's there to complain about? Rasulullah SAW is saying it's as if the whole world and everything in it has been collected for you. SubhanAllah, may Allah grant us the ability to constantly and constantly and constantly thank him and for those who thank Allah SWT, I say, Allah SWT has announced, Allah SWT has announced, Allah has declared that the one who is grateful to Allah, the one who expresses gratitude to Allah SWT, that Allah SWT will increase him in goodness, will increase the blessings on him, on this person, and the one who is ungrateful, Allah SWT said let him beware of the punishment of Allah. So we ask Allah SWT to keep us always, always, always among those who are grateful and never be ungrateful. So anytime there is a word of or a thought of complaint, anytime, and usually, you know, it's, may Allah have mercy on us, if for us it is like a, like a Takhiya Kalam almost, that every sentence has to begin with that, with a word of complaint. Say, how are you? Ah, I'm okay. You know, my groan, oh, I'm okay. What happened to you? You know, your back is broken, your leg is broken. What, what's, why are you groaning? What's the problem? Suha Allah, I mean really, ask yourself this question, right? How's the weather? It's always something is wrong with the weather, right? It's too hot, it's too cold, it's too this, it's too rainy, it's too dry. It's never perfect. So wallahi, that's why I come out in this cold, just to remind myself that Suha Allah, I'm standing here in this forest. It is completely, except for these coniferous trees and even these look like they have taken a beating because the temperature last night was minus 10. And here it goes to minus 20, so we are nowhere near the, we are just about at the half point now. What when I come out in the morning, the air is so beautiful, it's so clean and pure. I just take a deep breath of air and I say, Suha Allah, this is, this is a privilege. This being able to breathe this kind of air is a privilege. You see that tree and you see the bird right on top of that tree, there's a single bird sitting on top. That's a blue jay. I don't have the, this camera can't get there. I can't take you close to that, but I will post a couple of pictures of blue jays when Umair sends out this video insha Allah. So the point is that it's a question of focusing on the benefits, focusing on what we have, the beauty of what we have. And what we have as far as the beauty is concerned is that we have this clear air, right? Absolutely pure air that we can breathe. And I know that, you know, I come from India where there are jokes about the quality of air in Delhi and other places. There was somebody sent me a note from the Oberoi Hotel in Bangalore. It's a very nice hotel. I've stayed there several times, but they have, they advertised and they said that inside the hotel you can breathe clean air because they have, you know, cleaning air filters and stuff. Now imagine if you have to, if breathing ability to breathe cold, clean air, if that becomes now a differentiating factor for cells, for cells, what kind of terrible situation that is. But I'm here where I am. It's a very rural place. So absolutely pure air. I thank Allah SWT. I mean imagine how ungrateful and wretched I would be if I didn't do that. So I thank Allah. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. The cold itself, yes it's cold, but if you walk briskly and if you walk for a little bit then you don't feel the cold anymore. And of course, you know, as the Nobiji say, there's no such thing as cold. There's only inappropriate clothing. So if you have the right clothing, you don't feel the cold. Alhamdulillah, I have the right clothing. So it's the, the question is your attitude. Just think about this, you know, I was reflecting the other day, I think I, one of my lectures I mentioned this also. I'm not talking about ancient history. I'm talking about my own lifetime. And people of my age will recall every single one of these things. I remember a time when there were no refrigerators. We had something called the Hawa-Dhan, which was a cupboard with, which was on all four sides it had mesh. Hawa-Dhan. So any food that was eaten after dinner and so on, if anything was left. And one of the blessings of not having refrigerators was that you cooked enough for the day and also you gave it away. So, you know, poor people, they benefited. So, but sometimes there is more food and there's no one to give it. So this would be put in the Hawa-Dhan to keep it fresh. No refrigerators. We had no running hot and cold water. You could be living in a palace. And for those, for the Hyderabadis, think about Iram Mandir palace, right? Iram Mandir has completely, you know, gone to pot. They have destroyed it. Beautiful palace built by Fakhrul Murgh Bahadur. It had 600 rooms and 150 of those rooms or so were furnished with Louis XV furniture, French furniture from Louis XV's time. To give you an idea of what that means, if you want to go and buy a chair today in the market, a Louis XV chair, the price ranges from $2,500 to $24,000. So I'm not saying that the, like that Fakhrul Murgh paid $24,000 for each chair, but certainly he paid a lot of money. So there were 150 rooms furnished with this furniture. It had big drawing rooms and so on. Imagine the, you know, a whole full dinner set, a full drawing room set and so forth in that fantastic palace called Iram Mandir. But guess what? It was built in 1898. Iram Mandir had no hot and cold showers. So no matter which, how much money you had, no matter which kind of magnificent palace you lived in, and this applies to all the palaces in Hyderabad. Jamaila had no hot and cold running water, Falakhtaba had no hot and cold running water and so forth. So it was not a question of money. The technology didn't exist. So even if you are Fakhrul Murgh himself and you owned and you built Iram Mandir, and Iram Mandir was his second residence. His first residence is now what is the ASI hospital, what is the, yeah, ASI hospital. No, the TB hospital in Hyderabad just after, you know, you know, Heragada before Sanjeev Reddy Nagar colony. That was his actual residence. That's where he lived and next to that is his tomb. He and his wife are buried there, a very beautiful sandstone tomb that is there, Red Sands Home, which is Fakhrul Murgh's tomb, which was built in the garden of his house, garden of his deity. So this is the tomb that is built, that's where he's buried. And from there if you stand and look towards Panjagutta, you will see Iram Mandir on a hill. And the reason for that is because at that time Fakhrul Murgh, Fakhrul Umrah, the Prime Minister and who was the brother-in-law of the Nizam, Mir Bhaveli Khan, the sixth Nizam,