Return to LinguisticMiracle Gems

وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ ۖ وَلَئِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِي لَشَدِيدٌ

And
when your Lord proclaimed: "If you give thanks , I will give you more, but if you are thankless , verily! My Punishment is indeed severe." [Surah Ibrahim 14:7]


The Secret to Happiness:


لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ

If you give thanks, I will give you more


This verse contains one of the secrets to happiness, success and contentment, and it is as though Allaah is saying to us, I shall impart this simple secret to you if you are wise enough to take heed.”

The secret? All you have to do is be thankful to Me for what I have given you, and oh-so-much-more will come your way. All you have to do is to thank Me, and your rizq [provisions] will come; you need not worry about overburdening yourself and spending sunrise to sunset seeking your rizq [provisions] (although of course you should work),just give Me thanks and praise Me for what you already have and I will give you more!”



How is He saying all of this through just 3 words? By
emphasizing the concept, then emphasizing it more, then emphasizing it once again, and even emphasizing it a fourth time, so that there is no doubt in our minds about it.

In just these three short words, there are
four emphases; or to be even more accurate there are only two words that make up this clause for the third is entirely for emphasis.



Emphasis: Be Grateful, Allah will give you more:


لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ

If you give thanks, I will give you more



The first two emphasis are the initial laam
al-qasm followed by the particle إِنْ in لَئِن; the third is another laamal-Qasm in لأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ and the fourth is the letter noon of emphasis in the same word. Four different instances of emphases for one concept – that if we thank Allaah for what He has already given us, He will provide us with more.

[This is because the La
لَ is used as an emphasis [to strengthen the certainty of the statement], and the the 'Inإِنْ means 'without doubt'.]


Look back now to the English translation, If you give thanks, I will give you more. Diyaa’i mentioned in his article Dalaalat al-Tawkeed fee al-Jumlah al-‘Arabiyyah, one of the aims of using emphasis in Arabic is to remove all doubts from the mind of the addressee about a concept which would otherwise contain doubts.

The greater the doubts, or the more important the concept, the greater the number of emphases used. So when you have a concept which has been emphasized four times, this should tell us how important this concept is to us.



..But if you're ungrateful:


And just as this part of the verse has been emphasized four times, so too has the second part of the verse warning us of the consequences of being ungrateful; a warning from which we seemingly prefer to turn our ears by not granting ourselves access to it;


وَلَئِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِي لَشَدِيدٌ

..but if you are thankless, verily! My Punishment is indeed severe.



Something to think about next time we complain.

 

Return to LinguisticMiracle Gems