Be Grateful And He Will Give You Even More...

Accumulating wealth is indeed a noble thing to do. Islam teaches us to accumulate wealth and to spend it in accordance to the Shariah. The Prophet encourages us to be able to provide for our family when we are alive and to leave our beneficiaries wealthy when we move on to meet our Maker.

Wealth is something that most of us would love to have. However, wealth is a relative thing. To value wealth, some other point of reference is needed. Someone once said that having a huge bathroom means that we are wealthy. One very knowledgeable and humble Professor at INCEIF once said that having many children is a form of good investment. Good investment will lead to a wealthy life.

Speaking of life, I went to Shah Alam to pay my last respect to one of my grandaunt last week. (May Allah forgive her, be merciful to her soul and grant her Jannah Insha Allah). She was bedridden for more than 10 years. I think and hope and pray that Allah has washed away all of her sins together with her illness as how the Prophet has mentioned in his hadith that sickness or illness washes away the sin. Anyhow, as I was driving towards the Muslim burial ground in Shah Alam I got a shock of my life due to one amazing surprise.

You see, when muslims are buried, the deceased’s survivor would usually ensure that there will be two nisan stones or a tomb stone to indicate the deceased’s grave. On it will be his name, date of birth and date of death.There should not be anything else built around the grave as it would be meaningless for the deceased. But the Muslim burial ground in Shah Alam was full of all sorts of marble seats and marble surrounding the grave. I think that it is a waste of space having that marble around the grave. You could easily fit another two Muslims beside the deceased. On top of that it is also a waste of money to do so. The family should have used the money for charity in the name of the deceased so that at least he will be able to benefit from it too as the Prophet (saw) said that everything else stops between the deceased and the world except for three things. 1. Offspring who makes supplication and dua for the deceased, 2. Knowledge that he has passed on to which others had benefited and continue to pass on and 3. Charity deeds that is continued to be benefitted.

Actually, the marble seats and surrounding is nothing. Check out the picture below.

Yes ladies and gentlemen! This picture was taken at the Muslim burial ground in Shah Alam. The deceased is a Datuk. Not that it matters whether he is a Datuk or not in his grave but the deceased’s survivor decided to have his Datukship enscribed on his batu nisan and to built the above for him as well. 

I would like to apologise to that Datuk's relative for posting his grave picture here but to my humble opinion, this is certainly not a good way to spend wealth...

This is one example why it is important to leave your family wealthy AND EDUCATED about the Shariah.

Anyway, I noticed that when we are too comfortable with our good lifestyle, we tend to forget the blessings that we have received from the Most Wealthy. This is when we look at other people’s blessings and start to compare it with what we do not have. Unfortunately, sometimes, I myself am to be blamed here. I know you are a guilty party too.

Some check and balance would be beneficial to ensure that we do not always bitch about our blessings and start thanking Allah for the blessings that He has given.

Take some time to think about the smallest blessings that He has given to us. Like how well our fingers are functioning to be able to type work, assignments and blog post. How well our eyesight is to be able to browse Facebook. The lists just go on and on and on.

I heard someone saying that Muslims have been taught the art of begging from Allah that we become professional beggars. We have perfected the art of begging that we have books of dua or prayers that could make our begging procedures perfect. However, we always seem to forget to thank Allah for the things that He has given to us either because we have begged from Him for it but also for the things which He has given out of His mercy to us.

I think we should start thanking Him as much as we beg Him. Be grateful of His blessings and He will grant you even more. But if you are thankless, Lo! His punishment is indeed dire! (Ibrahim:7).

Blog adjourned.