Luqman's Timeless Advice: Gratitude, Shirk, And Responding To Blessings

The Advice of Luqman: Gratitude, Shirk, and the Rights of Parents

When he said to his son, while he was advising him: "Oh my son, oh my dear son, do not associate partners with Allah. Indeed shirk is a great — a great zulm, a great oppression."

And this relates directly with the first ayah which was talking about shukr. Because the greatest form of ungratefulness — the greatest form of ungratefulness — is being ungrateful to Allah. The one who is giving you everything: your life, your sustenance, your whole existence is given to Allah. And to turn back on Him, and to associate partners with Him, and belittle Him in this way, is complete ungratefulness.

So he's telling his son this first thing, to set this straight — that do not ever go near shirk, associating partners with Allah.

The Hadith of the Three Men: A Lesson in Gratitude

Regarding gratefulness, the Prophet ﷺ gives us an example of an angel that went to three men. He comes to three men: the first person is a leper, the second man is a bald man — a man who has no hair — and the third one is a man who is blind, who lost his sight.

These three people all have diseases for which people avoid them — some kind of thing that people dislike them for. For this reason, these people have an inferiority complex, and they feel that they want this to be removed from them.

So the angel goes to these three people and asks each of them: "What is that thing which you want more than anything else?" The leper says he wants good skin. The bald man says he wants nice, beautiful hair. And the blind man says he wishes to see. So the angel touches them, and they are cured. After that, he adds on — he says: "What wealth do you want more than anything else?"

So the leper receives a pregnant she-camel, the bald man receives a pregnant cow, and the blind man receives a pregnant sheep. All of these three men, through their animals giving birth, the herds multiply, and they get many, many cattle and camels and full flocks of sheep. Now they have so much wealth. This came out of nowhere. First of all, they had nothing, and Allah gave them everything. All of the dunya is in their hands now.

So Allah tests them to see how they respond to these blessings that He gave. The angel goes back to each man in the form of an old man seeking some provisions — something to help him get home, as he is a traveler.

The first man — the leper — rejects him. He says: "No, I will not give it to you." The old man says: "I recognize you — weren't you just like me, helpless and destitute some time ago?" But the man rejects that and says: "No, this is old wealth. I've had this, and it's come through my generations." So he lies to him, and he forgets that this is all from Allah.

Then the angel goes to the second man, and the bald man gives him a similar response — he refuses him completely.

But the blind man is the one who passes the test. He tells him: "Take everything that you want. All of this was a gift from Allah, and I'm going to give it back to you, and I won't ever ask you for anything from this." So the angel tells him: "No, you were just being tested — you passed the test."

Allah is pleased with you and is displeased with your two companions. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3464; Sahih Muslim, Book 47, Hadith 23)

So this shows — we can reflect this in our own lives and see: what are the blessings Allah gave us, and how are we using them? Are we using them to worship Allah? Are we giving back to the creation of Allah? Or do we forget that and associate it all to ourselves, like Qarun? It is important for us to recognize that.

The Continued Advice of Luqman: Salah, Good, and Patience

So this is the first advice that he gives his son — do not associate partners with Allah. After that, skipping two verses, Luqman continues the advice and says to his son:

He says: establish Salah, enjoin good, forbid evil, and have patience upon those things which afflict you. Then he goes further and says: be humble with people. Do not walk on the earth haughtily. Have humility. And when you speak, don't speak too loud and don't speak too low. And when you walk, walk at a moderate pace.

This is a small point we can take from here — the beauty of Islam, that there is so much intricate detail in every single aspect of our lives that Allah has shown us through the Shari'ah of the Prophet ﷺ. We see in the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ — he teaches us how to eat, how to drink, how to sleep, how to use the bathroom, how to deal with our own emotions, and so much more. So we can appreciate this, learn about it, and implement it into our lives.

The Two Verses on Parents: Why Right After Shirk?

But now, going back to those two ayahs which were skipped — between the advice against shirk and the other advices about salah and what came after that. What is so important that Allah had to place this right after the discussion of shirk? Allah says:

Allah says: we have commanded mankind to be good to their parents. And we see this in many places in the Qur'an and in many ahadith of the Prophet ﷺ — there is a connection. First of all, it shows how important it is that you must be good to your parents. The fact that it is coming right after the most important commandment of Allah, which is: do not associate partners with Him.

Mulla Ali Qari mentions that the connection between the two is that when you disobey your parents — when you do 'uquq of your parents — you are cutting the connection between you and the sabab, the means through which you were brought into this world, and the origin of that continued sustenance as you were growing up. Similarly, when it comes to shirk, Allah is the haqiqi — in reality, He is the real one who has given you everything that you have. And you disobeying Him and associating partners with Him is being ungrateful to Him, and cutting the connection between you and the origin of your existence and your sustenance.

So this shows how important it is to be good to your parents, because it is the reflection of shukr — you must be thankful to those people who have given you the blessings that you have.

Why the Special Emphasis on the Mother?

Then another question one might ask: why is there so much emphasis on the mother over the father? And the answer is quite obvious — as the Mufassirun mention, this goes off of the principle in fiqh that:

The amount of reward a person receives is based on the responsibility that they carry. We see that the human beings who have the highest status amongst all of mankind are the Prophets — and why? Because of that huge responsibility placed on their shoulders to convey the Deen to all of mankind. So because of that great responsibility, they received such a high reward.

Now when it comes to the mother, she has unique responsibilities that the father could never have even imagined or will never experience. She goes through the pregnancy, then the childbirth, then the feeding of the child — which the ayah also mentions. Because of these unique responsibilities, she has such a high rank.

So what does Allah say?

His mother carried him through hardship upon hardship. In this pregnancy, this is nine straight months of you being in your mother's womb. And what are you doing there? You are drawing all the nutrients from her, so that she has to eat for not one person but two. And then you are becoming an extra weight on her that creates bad posture and perhaps back pain. And on top of that, every single day she is going through morning sickness — nausea and vomiting — all because of you. And then even at night, when it is time to sleep, she is having difficulty sleeping because of you. All of this she bore out of love for you.

And then after that, what happens? She goes through one of the most painful experiences known to man — something us men will never ever experience. She goes through childbirth, and when she does, it is almost a near-death experience that many mothers do not even survive. This is such a painful experience. She is giving up her body for you, out of love for you.

And she comes out of this, and what happens? Then the next few years, she goes through what Allah tells us about:

She is feeding you, taking care of you. Every single thought in her mind is: How is my baby doing? Has he eaten? She is keeping track of when he last ate. She is making sure his diaper is being changed. She is sacrificing her sleep — during the night she is up all night trying to soothe the child. Whenever the child cries, that pains her. She is making sure the child is fed, his diaper is changed, and everything is being taken care of.

And then after that, the tarbiyah comes. For years, the parents go through so much difficulty dealing with the whining and complaining of the children, trying to make sure that they are upright people.

After all of this, we see that people have the audacity to speak up to their parents, to raise their voices at them, to object to them — and this is complete ingratitude. The whole theme of this talk is to be thankful. We see how much the parents have gone through, how much difficulty we have put them through — and then we go and object to them, and show disrespect to them, and disregard everything they have done for us.

The Direct Command in the Qur'an

On top of this, Allah gives us a direct command in the Qur'an:

Again, Allah says: do not associate partners with Him, and He has decreed that one must be good to his parents. Allah then says:

He directly tells us how we should talk to our parents, and each and every one of us should reflect on this and see how this is in our own lives. He says: do not even say "Uff," and do not rebuke them — rather, speak good words to them. Uff is a term that denotes annoyance, irritation. So Allah is telling us: do not ever show anything that will cause them displeasure. Don't even raise your voice to them, don't object to them.

The Severity of 'Uquq: A Major Sin

There is so much motivation for this, and so much targhib that Allah is giving — but we also see the punishment for this. It is a great, great sin. The Prophet ﷺ tells us in the hadith — the hadith of Bukhari — that Abdullah ibn 'Umar رضي الله عنه says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6675)

The major sins are: associating partners with Allah, doing 'uquq of your parents, killing another human being, and taking a drowning oath. A drowning oath is an oath that a person takes falsely — where he is lying in the name of Allah.

What does 'uquq mean? Mulla Ali Qari mentions that 'uquq can refer to any kind of behavior from the child which is not tolerated by the parents — which is not acceptable from the parents. Or another meaning could be: going against their command in anything that is not a sin. So any kind of mukhalafah of what they are saying, any kind of going against them, falls under this — which is a major sin, as the Prophet ﷺ is telling us.

So we see how great it is that we must take care of our parents and keep this in our minds. We hear this advice many, many times — all of us have heard this advice before, many of these ayat and ahadith we've heard before. But what happens? We must reflect on ourselves and see how we are applying this in our own lives. Everyone hears this and thinks: yeah, that other person doesn't do that — my sibling, my friend, my child, they don't do this. We apply it to other people. But it is important for us — me, myself, first and foremost — to put this in my life and see: how am I doing this? We all have many faults in this, and we should make sure that we take care of our parents.

How to Be Grateful to Your Parents

How do we do this? How do we be grateful to our parents? Sufyan ibn 'Uyaynah rahimahullah is quoted to have said:

Whoever prays the five times salah has thanked Allah. And whoever has made du'a for his parents after every single prayer has thanked his parents.

It is advice from Allah — He tells us in the Qur'an:

Make du'a for them: "Oh my Lord, have mercy on them, just as they raised me when I was young." (Quran 17:24) So we should take this advice and make it after every single salah.

If Your Parents Are Alive

If your parents are alive, then you have an opportunity that — if you ask people whose parents have passed away — is one thing they will always say: "I wish I had spent more time with them. I wish I had done more khidmah of them." And their lives are affected based on the way that they treated their parents. So when our parents are alive, we as their children should divide up the tasks of the house and make sure that we are making the lives of our parents as easy as possible — not making it difficult for them.

If Your Parents Have Passed Away

And if your parents have passed away, then the door is not completely closed. You still have an opportunity. What do you do? You make du'a for them always — after every single salah, you make du'a for them. On top of that, you can do isal al-thawab: every single day you do a good deed, you give some sadaqah, you pray nafl salah, and make the intention that it is going to your parents. And one more thing a person can do: those people whom your father and your mother were close to — their friends — you be good to them. You honor them, you respect them, and you maintain relationships with them.

I ask Allah to make it easy for us — me first and foremost, and everyone who is listening — to benefit from this. To be the best sons we can be. To be the best siblings, and the best fathers and mothers, insha'Allah.