Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 212 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:212

زُيِّنَ لِلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ ٱلْحَيَوٰةُ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَيَسْخَرُونَ مِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ۘ وَٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّقَوْا۟ فَوْقَهُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ يَرْزُقُ مَن يَشَآءُ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ

“Beautified for those who disbelieve is the life of this world, and they ridicule those who believe. But those who fear Allāh are above them on the Day of Resurrection. And Allāh gives provision to whom He wills without account.”

Saheeh International

Essence

This world is dressed up to dazzle and its admirers mock the faithful; the mindful will stand above them, and Allah gives without counting.

A reflection

Provision that is not a ranking

A man keeps a private spreadsheet of what he believes he deserves from life. A salary band, a house size, a title by forty. Every year he updates the gap between his column and reality, and feels cheated.

'And Allah provides for whom He wills without reckoning'. A classical commentator explains: He gives abundantly, without limit or count, in this world and the next. He gathers sayings of the Prophet ﷺ around it. In Sahih al-Bukhari, Allah says: 'Spend, son of Adam, and I will spend on you'. Two angels descend each morning; one prays for the generous to be replaced, the other for the miser to lose. In Sahih Muslim, the son of Adam cries 'my wealth, my wealth', yet owns only what he ate, wore or gave away.

The word for provision, rizq, pictures a ration handed out on its day, a bird dropping food into its chick's mouth. It arrives from outside. It is not a wage paid for merit.

This is majesty that undoes the ego's accounting. We imagine provision as a ranking: the rich are the deserving, the poor the failures. The ayah sits right after the rich mocking the poor believers, and replies that Allah gives as He wills, without counting. Wealth is not a verdict on worth.

Does He need us to understand this? No. He is free of all need (35:15). It is told to us so that we stop measuring people by their columns, starting with ourselves.

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.