Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 26 of 111

Al-Isra 17:26

وَءَاتِ ذَا ٱلْقُرْبَىٰ حَقَّهُۥ وَٱلْمِسْكِينَ وَٱبْنَ ٱلسَّبِيلِ وَلَا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيرًا

“And give the relative his right, and [also] the poor and the traveler, and do not spend wastefully.[737]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Your relatives, the needy and the stranded traveller have a right in what you hold, and wealth flung where it has no right is lost.

A reflection

His, not yours to grant

A woman keeps a list on her phone titled 'What I've done for him'. It is about her younger brother. The deposit on his flat. Two months of his car insurance. The suit for his interview. She has never shown it to anyone. She opens it whenever he forgets her birthday.

The ayah uses a word that would quietly delete that list. Wa-āti dhā al-qurbā ḥaqqahū: give the relative his right. Not your kindness to him, not your generosity. His ḥaqq, what is already his.

The first hearers knew what ḥaqq looked like. It was what is firm and real, the opposite of what is empty and vanishes. A tightly woven cloth was muḥaqqaq. A young camel entering its fourth year was a ḥiqq: now it could rightly carry a rider and a load. From the start, what is real and what is owed were one picture. What is true about your situation puts a claim on you.

So the relative's share is not a favour you invent. It is a fact you recognise. An early teacher was asked whether giving his zakat to his relatives settled the matter. They have a right in your wealth besides the zakat, he said, and recited this ayah. Another early reader described the right as the ties you mean to keep with them. One commentary lists what it covers. Keeping the bond, closing the gap of need, sharing your means when theirs run short, and help of every kind.

The list on the phone keeps a ledger in which she is the creditor. The ayah keeps a ledger in which she was the debtor all along. Not to her brother exactly, but to the One who placed him in her family. Paying a debt does not earn gratitude. It earns a lighter heart.

Delete the list. Keep giving. Stop counting it as giving.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.