This past Thursday was Thanksgiving in America. An annual holiday for the purpose of giving thanks to our Lord for all that He has done for us. This holiday was started by George Washington, who gave a speech (that I used to have) where he indicated that we are a country that believes in God, and we have been graced by God with independence and the ability to rule ourselves. And He has given us this land to live in, and the fruit of the land to be satisfied with. So he said, “We should all give thanksgiving to this God for giving us all these gifts.”
Thanksgiving is a nondenominational holiday. It doesn’t belong to any religion, it belongs to God. It’s become as important a holiday in the United States as there probably is, and it’s interesting about its nondenominational nature because it gives us the insight to see that all people believe in God, no matter what the name of their religion is, and no matter what the form that their practices take. The point being that it’s homage to our Creator, the creator of all of us. And this thanksgiving, this gratitude, for what we have and what we’ve been given, in Arabic is shakur, gratitude, and it’s one of the names of Allah, it’s one of qualities, one of the ninety-nine major qualities of Allah.
Thanksgiving is seen in the U.S. as an incredibly peaceful day, and people celebrate this gratitude with parades, and marching bands, and balloons, and all of these kinds of things. The lesson here, and it’s always important to understand the point, is the reason that you’re able to be peaceful on Thanksgiving is because the focus is on gratitude. And when you have a focus on one of Allah’s qualities, and one of Allah’s names, it protects you from all of the things that are not Allah’s qualities and Allah’s names. For instance; when you have gratitude there are other things that are automatically excluded…
