The Lesser and the Greater Jihad

The Lesser and the Greater Jihad can genuinely wish Assalamu Alaikum to someone else. This task is challenging. It requires the enormous efforts that are termed as ‘jihad’. There is a tradition, recorded in the Sahih Muslim, according to which the Prophet said: Alhamdulillah tamla ul-mizan. This means, “The word Alhamdulillah (Thanks be to God) fills up the scale.” (Sunan anNasa’i, Hadith No. 9924) On the Day of Judgment, one’s good deeds and evil deeds will be weighed on the scale set up by God. According to the tradition mentioned above, the scale will be filled up for a person who says Alhamdulillah. That is, his good deeds will outweigh his evil deeds. This is no simple matter. To genuinely say Alhamdulillah requires a great intellectual effort. To say Alhamdulillah is to express gratitude for God’s blessings. Man receives these blessings in various forms all the time. Every person receives them without any effort on his part. People generally become habituated to them, because of which they do not consciously recognise them as blessings. To genuinely say Alhamdulillah requires one to engage in an intellectual jihad in such a situation. An individual has to bring his powers of thinking into