Meaning of Alhamdulillah: Our Vehicle to Gratitude | Hafiz Zaid Khanani
Channel: Muslim Community Center - MCC East Bay
Date: 2022-10-14

Hafiz Zaid Khanani gives a Khutbah giving spiritual insights about what does it mean when we say Alhamdulliah.

- More Sidi Zaid: http://mcceastbay.org/zaid-khanani

Alhamdulillah (Arabic: ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ, al-Ḥamdu lillāh) is an Arabic phrase meaning "praise be to God", sometimes translated as "thank God". This phrase is called Tahmid (Arabic: تَحْمِيد, lit. 'Praising'). A longer variant of the phrase is al-ḥamdu l-illāhi rabbi l-ʿālamīn (ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ رَبِّ ٱلْعَالَمِينَ), meaning "all praise is due to God, Lord of all the worlds", first verse of Surah Fatihah.

The phrase is frequently used by Muslims of every background due to its centrality in the texts of the Quran and Hadith, the words of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Its meaning and in-depth explanation have been the subject of much exegesis. It is also commonly used by non-Muslim speakers of the Arabic language.

The phrase has three basic parts:

al-, the definite article, "the".
ḥamd(u), literally meaning "praise", "commendation".
li-llāh(i), preposition + noun Allāh. Li- is a dative preposition meaning "to". The word Allāh (Arabic: ٱللَّٰه) means "The God", and it is a contraction of the definite article al- and the word ʾilāh (Arabic: إِلَٰه, "god, deity"). As in English, the article is used here to single out the noun as being the only one of its kind, "the God" (the one and only) or "God". Therefore, Allāh is the Arabic word for "God". ʾilāh is the Arabic cognate of the ancient Semitic name for God, El.

The phrase is first found in the second verse of the first sura of the Qur'an (Al-Fatiha). So frequently do Muslims and Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians invoke this phrase that the quadriliteral verb hamdala (Arabic: حَمْدَلَ), "to say al-ḥamdu li-llāh" was coined, and the derived noun ḥamdala is used as a name for this phrase.

The triconsonantal root Ḥ-M-D (Arabic: ح م د), meaning "praise", can also be found in the names Muhammad, Mahmud, Hamid and Ahmad, among others.

This sermon was delivered at the Muslim Community Center - East Bay (MCC East Bay) in Pleasanton, California on October 14, 2022.

Zaid Khanani is a Marriage and Family Therapy trainee with the City of Fremont, Youth and Family Services. He graduated from Zaytuna College and completed his Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology at the Wright Institute.

Hafiz Zaid continues his formal Islamic Studies with local teachers and scholars overseas.

He is a former Islamic Studies teacher at Northstar Islamic School, and he teaches numerous online classes.

More MCC East Bay: 
Events & Activities: http://www.mcceastbay.org/calendar
Weekly Updates: http://www.mcceastbay.org/newsletter
Support MCC: https://www.mcceastbay.org/sadaqa
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MCCPleasanton 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcceastbay