Cloverleaf (ISSN 2561-6986)
In a well-known Muslim tradition, Muhammad the Prophet of Islam was once asked why he continued to exert himself so tirelessly in his nightly devotional prayers, to the point that his feet had grown swollen, when God had already forgiven him his faults, both of the past and future. “Shall I not be a thankful servant” he famously replied. This story which is frequently cited in literature as an example of gratitude or shukr, highlights the central place of gratitude in Muslim piety.
Indeed, the significance that is attached to this virtue is attested to by the fact that faith and belief appear within the ethical worldview of the Qur’an as forms of gratitude, with disbelief and infidelity as corresponding types of ingratitude. Even a cursory survey of the language of the Muslim scripture quickly reveals that the word kufr is employed in the text to refer to both disbelief and unthankfulness – that it stands as the antonym of both iman and shukr. In the words of the Japanese scholar Toshihiko Izutsu, “one and the same word, kafir, comes to mean a different thing according to its use as the contrary of shakir, ‘one who thanks,’ or as the contrary of mu’min, ‘one who believes.’ In the first case it means an ‘ingrate,’ and in the second ‘unbeliever.’” The observation leads to his broader conclusion that in Islam, “one of the keynotes of belief is gratitude and thankfulness. And this is the counterpart of the Qur’anic conception of God as the gracious, merciful Lord of men and all beings.” The Qur’ān, he adds “never tires of emphasizing the purely gratuitous act of benevolence on the part of Almighty God, which He bestows. In return man owes him the duty of being thankful for his grace and goodness. Kafir is a man who does not, would not show any sign of gratitude in his conduct.”
The term kufr, as Izutsu also points out, did not always connote the idea of disbelief. In pre-Islamic Arabian society it referred simply to ingratitude towards one’s benefactor. With the rise of Islam, the Qur’an came to theologise the term to imply the rejection of divine revelations while also retaining some of its distinctly pre-Scriptural sense as part of the semantic shifts it introduced in the language of the Arabs. It is significant in this light that of all the pre-Islamic values which lay at the disposal of the emerging Arabian religion, it was gratitude and ingratitude, shukr and kufr, which were selected to function as the pegs around which the key notions of “faith” and “disbelief” would be erected. This alone renders the virtue peculiarly unique within the Islamic tradition – a fact not lost to classical thinkers.
The purpose of this article is to add to our knowledge of gratitude as it is understood in Islam by focusing specifically on its conceptualisation within its contemplative ethical tradition, that is to say, within Sufism. The analysis that follows is divided into five parts. It begins with an overview of the definitions of gratitude in Sufi literature, and then proceeds to examine the psychological obstacles which stand in the way of its cultivation. Finally, it concludes with a brief overview of the consequences or karmic effects of internalising the virtue.
I – What is Gratitude?
Most of the treatments of shukr in the Sufi tradition tend to focus, as one finds in the Qur’an, on the human as opposed to the side of gratitude (since God in Muslim scripture is also “grateful” (shakir/shakur). The definitions usually have as a common thread a number of motifs the most important of which are recognition of the gift as a gift, an acknowledgment of its origin in God, and finally, the kind of response which the act of divine benefaction should evoke. The definition provided in Qushayri’s Treatise, an 11th century work, is illustrative: “the reality of gratitude in the eyes of the people of realisation (ahl al-tahqiq) is recognition of the blessing from the Benefactor in a state of humility.” Or as Tirmidhi, an early Sufi put it, gratitude is “the joy of the heart over the blessing of your Lord;” it is “the servant’s vision of His gift, benevolence, generosity, liberality, compassion, love and kindness.” Likewise, Aḥmad Zarruq (d.1493) states that gratitude “is the heart’s delight with the Benefactor on account of His blessings, until it spreads out and extends into the limbs.”
The focal point of these and other definitions is almost always on God as the mun‘im or mu‘ti, the Benefactor or Gift-Giver. This is understandable considering the theological nature of the analyses. Gratitude would never be (as it might in more secular treatments of the subject) construed simply as a positive attitude or state with no particular focal point towards which one may direct such feelings. The distinction that A. Walker a contemporary moral philosopher makes between “gratitude” and “gratefulness,” with the former being a feeling or gesture one channels in the direction of a particular benefactor and the latter a broader and more encompassing state in which one might be “thankful without being thankful towards anyone” because no such source of the gift can be identified, is, needless to say, more or less non-existent in any theocentric framework. Walker’s distinction, also present in contemporary positive psychology, is naturally premised on a certain philosophical view which does not feel compelled to recognise an ultimate benefactor, a benevolent deity that is a profoundly engaged actor in the human drama of existence and the source of life’s gifts. Within an Islamic and by extension Sufi religious context, however, such a being naturally stands at the summit of the triangle of gratitude, made up of a mun‘im (benefactor/gift-giver), mun‘am (beneficiary/recipient of the gift), and the ni‘ma (blessing/benefaction/gift) which brings the two together. In a non-theistic or deistic framework, on the other hand, the triangle would simply collapse into a line outside of interpersonal (or even inter-sentient) relations.
For Walker, at least, this does not mean that one cannot express one’s appreciation when there is no agent behind the gift. This is because gratefulness, for him, is usually accompanied by a desire to make a return, and this is one feature that separates it from merely feeling glad: one wishes to favour another because one has received favour oneself. And so a shipwrecked seaman, to use his example, who has been cast ashore by a wave which rescued him from certain death may display his gratefulness by an act of generosity towards his fellow seamen, the local villagers, or someone else. Nevertheless, in the absence of a clear agent of benefaction to which one can direct feelings of gratefulness, in a continuous state, even Walker would have to concede that such a virtue would likely be more fully cultivated within a theocentric framework which allows one to retrace all of one’s blessings to a supreme agent. In fact it could be argued that a person overcome by constant feelings of thankfulness would likely find such a worldview more conducive to the expression and channeling of such feelings. A gift-giver who has singled one out for favour is more likely to elicit feelings of thankfulness than a non-existent or nebulous, vaguely identifiable one.
In an Islamic context, needless to say, the theocentric nature of conceptualisation of gratitude is central. It is so fundamental in character particularly to Sufi inquiries into the virtue, that we encounter a view of gratitude which goes so far as to entirely invert Walker’s notion of seeing the gift but not the gift-giver. In a saying attributed to Shibli (d. 946), we read that “gratitude is the vision of the Benefactor, not the blessing.” Or as another authority put it, “gratitude is absence from the blessing through the vision of the Benefactor.” Definitions of this genre could be clarified and explained by tradition through an appeal to a stratification of gratitude into various levels; at the summit of which stands a state of absorption in God that is so intense and all-consuming that one is no longer conscious of the gift. It is as if the act of benefaction is meant simply to take one to the gift-giver, in whose presence one becomes entirely unconscious of or annihilated from the gift. And so we find in ‘Abd Allah Ansari’s (d. 1088) Stations of the Wayfarers that he identifies Shibli’s definition with that of the highest of the three levels of gratitude. In his commentary on Ansari’s work, ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Qashani (d. 1330) describes the experience of one who stands at the summit of this station in a passage that calls to mind the Plotinian notion of being alone with the Alone: “[It] entails a complete absorption in witnessing Him in [a state of] solitude. It is a station where there is nothing but the Real alone, where one does not see anything but Him, and in which one witnesses neither blessing nor affliction, because he is, through his witnessing, made entirely oblivious to both himself and another. He does not see anything but the Real alone, for were he to witness another he would not witness the Real alone, and would thereby not be one made solitary (mufrad) [through the station in which he stands].”
While most of the treatments of gratitude within Sufi literature seem to acknowledge, at least implicitly, that gratitude at its highest levels involves either a witnessing of the Real alone, or the Real within the gift, with the gift being His own self-disclosure, the focus of Sufi inquiries into shukr tends to be on the moral or spiritual psychology of gratitude. That is to say, what should one be grateful for, how might its obstacles be overcome, and how is the virtue to be cultivated and embodied? In other words, what are the rules that should govern the “grammar of gratitude” in the life of the believer? The emphasis within Sufi treatments is by and large on mu‘amala or praxis, that is to say aiding one to develop this particular quality within herself and to embody it so as to draw closer to God. There is, for the most part, little in these treatments that a pious believer who disagrees with or objects to a metaphysical schema that blurs the distinction between God and the human being can seriously object to.
II – Overcoming Gratitude’s Obstacles
A recurring motif within the Qur’an’s discussion of shukr is the propensity of the human being to be unthankful. This view is not unique to Islam’s understanding of human nature. Indeed, Immanuel Kant recognised this tendency when he observed that “man is so notorious for it that we are not surprised if someone makes an enemy by showing kindness.” The Qur’ān itself however does not go into extensive detail as to the reasons for this. Why is the human being so prone to this particular moral fault? Kant himself singles out pride, but his discussion of gratitude centres around interpersonal relations of duty, that is to say, responsibilities which moral agents have towards their human benefactors. The logic of his analysis is not easily transposable towards an analysis of shukr in the Qur’ān, which is concerned first and foremost with the divine-human relationship.
Within the Islamic tradition, the most common explanation that was offered for human ingratitude was heedlessness (ghafla) and ignorance (jahl). In the view of Ibn ‘Abbad (d. 1390), it is because of the “extent to which heedlessness has overtaken them” that most people do not realise blessings and are therefore ungrateful for them. Or as ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Qashani put it, “how many an ignorant one is there who receives a blessing but does not count it a blessing.” The logic behind this line of thinking is itself implicit within the Qur’ān when it calls to mind human ingratitude alongside God’s generous outpouring of gifts.
Abu Ḥamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) explains the psychology behind ingratitude by drawing attention to the fact that as humans we are inclined only to be grateful for those blessings which we feel ourselves to be singled out for, that is to say, blessings that appear unique or specific to us. Our ingratitude for general blessings, on the other hand, that is, those blessings which are distributed to everyone and which accompany us in all of our states, is, for Ghazali at least, the result of extreme ignorance. He provides the example of air, a general blessing of which everyone has a share, to convey his point. This is the kind of blessing an unreflective person might only reckon a blessing if he were choked and then released, locked in a bathhouse with little more than scorching hot air to breath, and then freed, or if he fell to the bottom of a well surrounded by unbearably cold and moist air, and then, by some miracle of chance, was rescued. Only such extreme circumstances would induce him to appreciate the preciousness of an element he might never have given much thought to or enough to be moved to gratitude. The same could be said if he were temporarily deprived of the sense of sight, hearing, smell, or any other general blessing essential to an overall condition of well-being. The tendency to recognise the value of a blessing only when it is lost therefore has its roots, as noted, in heedlessness and ignorance, since gratitude tends to be postponed to the moment when it disappears, or when it is lost and restored. In view of these considerations, Ghazali encourages one to constantly contemplate those gifts which might be taken for granted but without which the quality of life would be diminished, or worse, made unbearable. This includes being thankful even for the intricate and delicate balance of the world, which allows such blessings to come into existence and make their way to human beings for their own enjoyment and use. Since it is through this balance that divine gifts reach us, it too should be an object of gratitude. Only by actively and consciously reflecting over the most seemingly menial and trivial of life’s bounties, therefore, is it possible in Ghazali’s eyes for one to cultivate a genuine state of thankfulness and fullfil the obligations of the virtue.
The idea that humans recognise blessings only when they are deprived of them is a recurring motif in the classical literature on shukr. The authors who address this topic seem to concur that it is an underlying reality of the human state and part and parcel of the human proclivity towards ghafla. Ibn ‘Ata Allah (d. 1309) captures the essence of this condition when he declares in one of his aphorisms, that “he who does not recognise a blessing in its presence, realises it in its absence.” This is why, as Ibn ‘Abbad observes in his commentary, the value of water is only recognised by one overcome by intense thirst in a desert, not by the one standing next to a flowing river, or why an insolent, rebellious son only comes to appreciate his father on the day of his death. It was an awareness of this same tendency that also led Fuḍayl b. ‘Iyad (d. 803) to caution, “remain in a constant state of gratitude for blessings, for rarely does a blessing return to a people after it has been lost.” Or as Sari al-Saqati (d. 867) put it, “he who does not realise the value of a blessing, is stripped of it from whence he knows not.”
One of the methods the Sufi authorities suggest by which one can overcome the tendency towards heedlessness is to observe those who are deprived of the very amenities which one may take for granted. The basis of this idea is itself found in a number of hadiths; among them is the tradition in which the Prophet encouraged his disciples to “look at the one who has been given less than you, not at the one who has been given more.” The intention behind this advice, as is rather obvious, is to make one more aware of one’s blessings by considering the plight of those who are deprived of them. As an illustration of this strategy, Ghazali mentions the story of a man who used to regularly visit hospitals, graveyards and state institutions where punishments were meted out. At the hospitals he would observe the condition of the sick, the diseased, and the decrepit. This would cause him to consider his own health and vitality and move him to thank God. At prisons and other such institutions, he would see legal punishments carried out on bandits, murderers and other such criminals. This would lead him to cherish his own security as well as his freedom from the trials which caused others to turn to lives of crime thus further intensifying his feelings of gratitude. Finally, at graveyards, standing before the graves of the dead, he would reflect over the fact that there is nothing the deceased would want more than to return to life, if even for the span of a day. The sinner, he thought, were he to be given a second chance, would take the opportunity to repent and make amends for all the wrongs he had committed, while the righteous person would use the opportunity to do even more good, having now experienced first-hand the delightful recompense of a life of virtue. These considerations would cause him to thank God even more.
Along similar lines, Ghazali relates the story of Rabi‘ b. Khaytham who, despite the completeness of his inner vision, sought a way to further strengthen his knowledge of God and deepen his feelings of gratitude. To this end, he would sleep in a grave which he had dug within the courtyard of his own home. Before falling asleep, he would pray, “My Lord, allow me to return, so that I might do good” (Q 23:99-100). Upon awakening and seeing that his prayer had been answered, he would say to himself, “O Rabi‘! You have been given what you asked for, so work until you ask [again] to return, but it will not be granted.” While the notion of digging a grave within the vicinity of one’s own home may strike the sensibilities of a modern reader as rather extreme, Ghazali’s intention is to underscore the importance of consciously and vigorously cultivating shukr, so as to make it, through habituation, second-nature. This is particularly because of the ease with which humans fall into a lackadaisical state of mind and become easily incognisant of all that they have been given. Ghazali therefore recommends certain exercises of remembrance to counteract the downward pull of forgetfulness.
Our authors also emphasize the need to be grateful for circumstances which could have been much worse. In his Etiquettes of the Soul, Muhasibi (d. 857) counsels that “you should count every trial which comes your way as a blessing because God has sent greater, more severe trials to others.” The shukr of which he speaks is not necessarily for the trial (bala’) itself, but for the blessing in it being greater. The underlying idea is found in the story of the man who wrote to his friend a complaint upon being sent to prison by the sultan. To his own bewilderment, the friend replied, “be grateful to God!” When the man was later subjected to a beating and wrote to his friend again, bemoaning his worsened condition, “be grateful to God!” came the reply. Finally, a Zoroastrian with a gastrointestinal ailment (mabtun) was brought into the prison and had his foot chained to that of the man. Whenever he would be forced to make his way to the toilet in the middle of the night, the man would have to accompany him. He wrote again to his friend lamenting his plight, who responded yet again as he had always before, “be grateful to God!” “How long,” the man wrote back in frustration, “will you continue to say this (to me)? And what trial could be more severe (than the one I am in)?” “If the belt he wears around his waist was tied around your waist,” his friend sagaciously responded, “just as the chain around his foot is tied to your foot, what then would you do?”
Finally, the most valuable of blessings about which our authors never tire of reminding the reader of are religious and spiritual in nature. The Andalusian Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi divides divine gifts into three categories. “Know O dear friend (muhibb),” he writes in the Purification of Hearts, “that the blessings over which gratitude is binding are of three kinds: worldly blessings such as health, wealth and children, religious blessings such as knowledge, piety and good words, and (finally) other-worldly blessings such as receiving tremendous rewards for a small amount of devotional worship performed in a momentary, fleeting lifespan.” The value attached to the last two of these is found in a story told about Sahl al-Tustari (d. 896). A man once came to him complaining of a thief who had broken into his home and stolen his goods. “Be grateful to God most High,” he warned, “for if the thief, the Devil, had entered your heart and corrupted your tawhid, what then would you do?” The moral of the story is self-evident, that as long as one retains the gift of faith, all other losses pale in comparison. Along similar lines, Abu ‘Uthman al-Hiri (d. 910) observed the difference between the thankfulness of those whose aspirations are noble, lofty, and divine, and those unable to move beyond the most basic concerns of this world. “The gratitude of the common people is for food and clothing,” he once said, “while the gratitude of the elect is for spiritual insights which descend into their hearts.”
III - The Consequences of Gratitude
Some of the oft recurring themes within treatments of shukr in the Sufi tradition are for lack of a better term, the cosmic effects of cultivating the virtue in question. They are a sort of law of cause-and-effect, a kind of divine sunna or custom that governs the cosmos and the internalisation and embodiment of gratitude is believed to have certain consequences above and beyond just the transformation of the soul. Another effect of gratitude, at least from the perspective of the tradition, is that it serves to preserve and safeguard bounties. This is one of the reasons why the spiritual authorities encourage shukr as a way of protecting divine gifts from being lost. “Blessings are (like) wild beasts,” said one of the early Muslims, “tie them with the rope of gratitude.” Likewise, ingratitude is believed to have the opposite effect, by rendering one vulnerable to losing those very blessings. As Sahl al-Tustari put it, “he who does not realise the value of blessings, is stripped of them from whence he knows not.” Ibn ‘Ata Allah’s expressed this same notion in one of his aphorisms, when he wrote, “He is who is not grateful for blessings, runs the risk of losing them; (while) he who is grateful for them, ties them down with their own fetters.” Makki offered this line of reasoning as one of the interpretations of the Qur’anic verse, “Verily God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in their own souls.” God only takes away blessings, he argued, after the recipients of those very gifts become ungrateful for them. The internal state of kufr al-ni‘ma produces an external effect, namely the vanishing of those very blessings.
Persistent ingratitude coupled with unrestrained, reckless sinfulness may also lead, in more extreme cases, to a proliferation of blessings, but the kind which in fact become the source of one’s misfortunes, unless checked by repentance. In such a state, the recipient of these gifts, under the spell of his own self-importance, deludes himself into thinking that they are the result of his own special place in God’s eyes. After all, why would He privilege him with so many favours? All the while, he does not consider that these gains may, due to his own state, become the source of his downfall through a subtle divine deception (makr). This particular condition is described as one of istidraj, where the ingrate is led to ruin, through apparent blessings, slowly and gradually, step-by-step, without knowing it. It happens in a manner that is so subtle and elusive that, before he knows it, he stands before his own destruction, even if he only experiences the full brunt of it after death. Zarruq defines this istidraj as “a tribulation (miḥna) which lies concealed in the gift itself, while there remains no fear of trial (fitna).” The basis of this idea is itself found in the Qur’an, when it states, “We shall lead them on, step-by-step (nastadrijuhum), from where they know not.” For Zarruq, the fear of istidraj spurs the pious and heedful to continuously turn to God in a state of gratitude by employing their blessings for noble and worthy ends. As Ibn ‘Abbad states, “the fear of being brought low, step-by-step (istidraj), through blessings is among the qualities of those of faith. And the absence of this fear alongside persistence offences is among the qualities of the ungrateful ones (kafirin).” As noted, istidraj is not the result of simply being unmindful of blessings, but a graver and more serious condition of rebellious, sinful ingratitude coupled with a sense of self-importance alongside the delusion that temporal fortunes are the marks of receiving favour from heaven.
Just as ingratitude leads to a loss of fortunes, or the proliferation and transmutation of them into sources of ruin, conversely, gratitude is believed to lead to an increase of blessings. This is why Makki says that “the grateful one is in a state of increase (al-shakir ‘ala mazid),” that is to say, through thankfulness he opens himself to receive even more divine gifts. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350) likewise states that God “has made it (gratitude) a means for drawing more, out of his fadl.” Or as Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273) would state, “[t]o express gratitude is to stalk and ensnare good things. When you hear the sound of gratitude, you will be prepared to give more.” The Persian master’s words highlight something of the reasoning for why this is the case. When one is genuinely thankful for a gift, the gift-giver is inclined, in the face of a sincere and heartfelt recognition of benefaction, to be even more generous, at least if his/her means afford it. Since his/her gift has been acknowledged and graciously received, she cannot but be moved to bestow more favours. God, or so our authors argue, is no different. When humans are grateful, it is believed that He will give them even more of His limitless bounties. But the underlying basis of this view, that gratitude draws even more gifts, is primarily scriptural. In the Qur’an we read, “if you are grateful, I will surely give you more (la azidannakum)” (Q 14:7). Makki draws attention to the unique place of gratitude by noting that God does not make as direct a promise in instances which involve His forgiveness (maghfira) (Q 5:40), wealth or prosperity (ighna’) (Q 9:28), sustenance (rizq) (Q 2:212), turning towards the human being (tawba) (Q 9:27), or the response to remove an ill (ijaba) (Q 6:41). For each of these the divine gift is qualified by “if He wills” or “on whom He wills.” But this is not so with shukr since He promises, without qualification, to meet gratitude from the human side with an “increase” from His own side. Ghazali also felt compelled to draw attention to this very point regarding shukr in the Qur’ān in his own treatment of the subject – clearly under the influence of Makki –– as did Ibn al-Qayyim.
The exact nature of the “increase” (mazid/ziyada) was the subject of some debate within the classical exegetical tradition. Makki states that ultimately the nature of the blessing rests on how God sees fit, that no constraint can be imposed on Him on this matter. “The increase,” he writes, “lies in the hands of the Benefactor. He determines it as He wills.” It may, for Makki, involve a heavenly grace that leads to the development of virtuous character traits (akhlaq), or the acquisition of particular kinds of knowledge. While it may also be of a worldly nature, the most coveted of increases, as we would expect from a representative of Islam’s inner tradition, are spiritual ones. Makki suggests that the increases may also follow a progression, beginning with an awareness of God as the sole origin of the gift, as one who confers it without the help of a co-partner or intermediary. This may in turn be followed by a more stable state of perpetually witnessing the divine benefactor. As Makki writes, among the most valuable of gifts is “beauty of certainty and witnessing [His] attributes.” And the most splendid and cherished of all gifts is the beatific vision, a divine response to the thankful prayers of praise uttered by the newly arrived inhabitants of Paradise. “And by their vision of Me,” a tradition has God declare, “I give them more.” For Makki every act of gratitude, for each and every blessing, no matter how insignificant, attracts through a kind of cosmic magnetism, an increase from Him, just as every act of ingratitude elicits its opposite. The close relation which Makki draws between shukr and mazid in fact permeates his entire discussion of gratitude.
Ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240) offers one of the most intriguing explanations regarding the promised increase. The Andalusian mystic opens his treatment of gratitude in the Meccan Revelations, in the same way as Qushayri in the Treatise, by quoting the Qur’anic verse (14:7) which serves as the basis for the idea. He states categorically that gratitude “is a quality which necessitates (the conferring of) an increase from the mashkur to the shakir,” that is to say, from the one thanked to the thankful one. After briefly discussing the role which the ziyada should play in the divine-human relationship of gratitude, he returns to the theme at the very end of the chapter. It is here that he argues, in contrast to Makki, that there is indeed a constraint, that the recompense for gratitude, the ziyada, must be similar in kind to the blessing for which gratitude is shown. In other words, there must be a correlation between the increase that God bestows in return for gratitude, and the gift for which gratitude was shown in the first place. “The verifiers (muhaqqiqun) take it,” that is to say, the ziyada, “to be of the same genus as that which occasioned gratitude. What is not of the same genus is not (for them) the increase that is necessitated by gratitude. No, such blessings fall within the category of the initial gift, not the category of requital (bab al-jaza’).” He goes on to state that if the return is not of the same kind or genus, then it is simply another divine gift, not the promised increase. Ibn al-‘Arabi acknowledges that the nature of the increase is a matter of debate, but states that the men and women who through their own enlightened states have been able to ascertain matters for themselves know of what we might call the “law of correspondence” which governs the relationship between human gratitude and the increase which follows it. Those who argue otherwise, on the other hand, do so because of “a lack of understanding of the correspondence (munasaba) between things which the Wise Judge (al-ḥakim) – exalted be He – has chosen.” In relation specifically to the question of shukr, what Ibn al-‘Arabi’s position naturally implies is that if one wants to receive a particular kind of gift from God, then he/she should raise himself/herself to give thanks for whatever portion of the gift he/she might already possess, be it wealth, health, knowledge or faith.
It is not surprising to find traces of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s argument in the earlier tradition. We have for example the statement of Nasrabadhi (d. 977-8), a disciple of Shibli and himself a Sufi master, that “he who is grateful for the gift receives more of the gift while he is who grateful for the Giver receives more of gnosis and love of Him.” The remark not only sheds light on the degrees of gratitude, it also demonstrates the idea of correspondence or munasaba outlined above. Ghazali does not broach the particular question of the nature of the mazid/ziyada in any detail in his Book of Patience and Gratitude of the Iḥya’, but he does provide an interpretation of the story from the life of the Prophet with which we opened this essay that seems to illustrate the view that Ibn al-‘Arabi would articulate more than a century later. Recall that when the Prophet was asked why he exerted himself so tirelessly in his night vigils, despite having been forgiven his sins, he replied, “shall I not be a grateful slave?” According to Ghazālī, it was as if he said, “shall I not seek more of the (higher) stations?” to which he then adds by way of commentary, “this is because gratitude is a means of (eliciting) ziyada, just as God says, ‘If you are grateful, I will surely give you more’.” Even though the Prophet already stood in a station of proximity, argues Ghazali, he sought to draw even closer to God, and this he did by expressing thanks for the intimacy he already enjoyed in view of his knowledge of the hidden power of gratitude.