All Praise to the One Who Preferred Us

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says that Sulaymān (peace be upon him) inherited his father Dāwūd. Allah (swt) says:

Wa la-qad ātaynā Dāwūda wa Sulaymāna ʿilmā — We have given knowledge to Dāwūd and Sulaymān. Knowledge is one of the things we could become proud with, and it is similar to money. We always tend to give credit to our hard work: I am successful because I studied hard; or, I am rich because I worked hard. But with anything — whether it is money, wealth, or knowledge — all of the credit goes back to Allah (swt). It is Allah who made it possible for you to study; it is Allah who made it possible for you to work hard. Allah could have inflicted you with a disease, and no matter how hard a worker you are, you would not be able to do anything. So it is a tawfīq from Allah; Allah is the One who made it possible for you to do this.

Dāwūd and Sulaymān were at the highest levels of knowledge in their time. Nobody else had more knowledge than they did; nobody had more understanding than they did; they were the anbiyāʾ of Allah. Allah (swt) says that We gave them knowledge — and what was their response? They said: al-ḥamdu lillāhi alladhī faḍḍalanā ʿalā kathīrin min ʿibādihi al-muʾminīn — all praise and thanks be to Allah, who has preferred us above many of His believing slaves. So the blessing is from Allah (swt), and Allah (swt) is the One who is thanked.

And the issue of thanking is a very, very important ʿibādah. Ibn al-Qayyim says that there are two wings for the bird: one of them is shukr and one of them is ṣabr. We have to have these two wings: on one side we have thanks, and on one side we are patient. If anything good happens to us, we thank Allah; if anything bad happens to us, we have patience.