There was for [the tribe of] Saba' in their dwelling place a sign: two [fields of] gardens on the right and on the left. [They were told], "Eat from the provisions of your Lord and be grateful to Him. A good land [have you], and a forgiving Lord."
But they turned away [refusing], so We sent upon them the flood of the dam, and We replaced their two [fields of] gardens with gardens of bitter fruit, tamarisks and something of sparse lote trees.
[By] that We repaid them because they disbelieved. And do We [thus] repay except the ungrateful?
And We placed between them and the cities which We had blessed [many] visible cities. And We determined between them the [distances of] journey, [saying], "Travel between them by night or day in safety."
But [insolently] they said, "Our Lord, lengthen the distance between our journeys," and wronged themselves, so We made them narrations and dispersed them in total dispersion. Indeed in that are signs for everyone patient and grateful.
In the aforementioned story we see that the tribe was blessed with great comfort and safety and security in their life. They were surrounded by gardens of fruits. Further, Allah mentions that He gave them ease of travelling long distances.
As for the blessings given to them in their dwelling places they did not show gratefulness hence they got replaced with bitter fruits and distasteful things. Allah had blessed them and all they needed to do was to enjoy the blessings and to be grateful. How could they have been ungrateful to such amazing gardens of fruits around them? If we ponder a little we can understand their state of mind which could have led them to show ingratitude to those blessings. They must have got bored of the ease in their life. They must have lost the sense of value for those things which were easily available to them. Instead of being extremely thankful that they had easy access to all kinds of fresh and sweet fruits they were thankless and careless.
The second great blessing was the ease of travel provided to them by Allah. They could travel at any point of the day or night and feel completely safe and secure. They did not go through the toils of the journey nor did they feel any tiredness or lack of facilities. But this was not welcomed by them. They wanted adventure. They wanted that their journeys became longer so they could enjoy and feel excited.
They could have chosen to be patient and grateful instead they chose to be hasty, complaining and ungrateful. Allah tested their attitude when they were given the blessings and they failed the test.
In this same Chapter in the Quran Allah mentions His two most grateful Prophets; David and Solomon peace be upon them both. They were blessed with extraordinary abilities and powers and were given assistance through the air, the Jinn and the animals as well. They enjoyed all the blessings of Allah and were extremely humble and grateful to this great Mercy of Allah upon them. Allah appreciates them in the Quran as His thankful slaves.
The reason why I have discussed this story from the Quran is to remind myself and my readers to be more and more grateful to each and every blessing of Allah upon us. Today we can see how people are not getting the most basic thing, the oxygen, that we inhale without even realizing. Each of us should take a moment to do self-analysis and ask Allah to forgive us if we had been ungrateful to His immense blessings of breathing with ease, travelling with comfort, eating good things in safe environment, having family around us, meeting friends and going out without giving the second thought on the possibility of catching a virus. It is the need of the hour, each one of us must think and consciously seek forgiveness if we had ever complained of the mundane life, of the same people we meet everyday, of the boring nature of our housework or workplace, of our children pestering us...and so on. We do not even realize how ungrateful and complaining are our statements at times because we do not value the things that we possess. Some blessings we get without our smallest efforts and some things we achieve with efforts yet, once we have them, we tend to devalue them.
From today, we should make this our attitude to be grateful to each and everything in life. Allah accepts the person who turns back to Him after realizing the mistake. I seek Allah's forgiveness and ask Him to forgive all my brothers and sisters and help us to be grateful. I ask Allah to help us come out of this time of difficulty and make our life 'normal' again like we used to have before this pandemic. May be we did not value our 'normal' life got bored and complained about things without even realizing our mistake.
Let us hope for the Mercy of Allah.
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