A beneficial insight: After the Creator reminded His servants of His favor in making livestock and ships easy to ride, He said, “so that you may sit securely upon their backs, then remember your Lord’s favor when you have settled on them and say, ‘Glory be to the One who has subjected this to us, for we by ourselves could never have mastered it; and surely to our Lord we shall return’” (al-Zukhruf 43:13–14). In these two verses He sets forth the three pillars of gratitude:

• acknowledging and recalling Allah’s blessing, and speaking about it;
• praising Allah for it;
• and humbling oneself before Allah and using the blessing to seek His help in worship, for the aim of His words “and surely to our Lord we shall return” (al-Zukhruf 43:14) is to affirm the coming recompense and prepare for it, and the purpose of these favors is that they aid the servant in the obedience for which he was created.

His saying, “then remember your Lord’s favor when you have settled on them” (al-Zukhruf 43:13) links this remembrance to the very moment one enjoys the blessing, because many people become intoxicated by favors, forget Allah, and are driven to boastfulness and pride. The state Allah commands here is the remedy for that ruinous disease: whenever the servant remembers that he is engulfed in Allah’s favors—that their source, their availability, the means that lead to them, their continuance, and the repelling of anything that would negate or diminish them are all purely from Allah’s grace and beneficence, not from the servant himself—he bows to Allah in humility, thanks Him, and extols Him. In this way the blessing endures, Allah blesses it, and it becomes a genuine favor.

But if he responds with arrogance and vanity, forgets the Benefactor, and perhaps even uses the favor to lord it over Allah’s servants, then it becomes a punishment disguised as a blessing—a gradual enticement from Allah. It will quickly fade, and chastisement and retribution are close at hand. We ask Allah to enable us to show gratitude for His favors.