Al-Ma'un · Makki · ayah 3 of 7

Al-Ma'un 107:3

وَلَا يَحُضُّ عَلَىٰ طَعَامِ ٱلْمِسْكِينِ

“And does not encourage the feeding of the poor.”

Saheeh International

Essence

He is blamed not for failing to feed the hungry, but for something cheaper: he would not say one word to move anyone else to.

A reflection

The cheapest thing he would not give

You would expect the ayah to say: he does not feed the poor. It sets the bar lower. He does not even urge. Not himself, not his household, not anyone else.

Why aim so low? One classical answer is almost a piece of logic. If a man pushes the orphan away from what is already the orphan's, he will hardly feed the poor from his own pocket. He is mean even with other people's money. So the ayah exposes the last, cheapest thing he still refuses to give: a sentence.

Another commentator adds a careful limit. The blame is not general, so as to include the one who cannot give. It falls on people who were stingy and kept making excuses for themselves. Put together, the meaning is clear. They would not feed the poor when they were able, and would not urge it when they were not.

One classical derivation ties ḥaḍḍ to ḥaḍīḍ, the low ground at a mountain's foot: urging something on, down towards level ground. Whether or not the derivation holds, the picture fits. Urging is momentum. It gets a stuck thing moving.

Think of the office group chat when a colleague's father dies and someone suggests sending meals. One person gets things moving: a rota, a collection, a card. Another stays silent. A third types: 'Aren't they quite well off?'

The ayah's lesson for anyone who leads is simple. Even with empty hands, a voice still counts. In most teams, the one who gets good things moving is leading, whatever the job title says. And the one with a title who never moves anyone towards good has quietly resigned from the most important part of leadership.

So the question is not only what you give. It is what you set in motion. How many meals have been cooked because you said one sentence at the right moment?

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.