Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 90 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:90

بِئْسَمَا ٱشْتَرَوْا۟ بِهِۦٓ أَنفُسَهُمْ أَن يَكْفُرُوا۟ بِمَآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ بَغْيًا أَن يُنَزِّلَ ٱللَّهُ مِن فَضْلِهِۦ عَلَىٰ مَن يَشَآءُ مِنْ عِبَادِهِۦ ۖ فَبَآءُو بِغَضَبٍ عَلَىٰ غَضَبٍ ۚ وَلِلْكَـٰفِرِينَ عَذَابٌ مُّهِينٌ

“How wretched is that for which they sold themselves - that they would disbelieve in what Allāh has revealed through [their] outrage that Allāh would send down His favor upon whom He wills from among His servants. So they returned having [earned] wrath upon wrath. And for the disbelievers is a humiliating punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Envious that Allah gives His favour to whom He wills, they sold their own selves for rejection, and came away with anger upon anger.

A reflection

Envy is an argument with the Giver

A baker has entered the county show for twenty years and never won. This year a fifteen-year-old's first ever sponge takes the rosette. The baker smiles for the photograph. Driving home, she grips the wheel so hard her hands ache.

The ayah names the true object of envy, and it is not a person. They rejected the revelation 'out of envy that Allah would send down of His favour upon whom He wills of His servants'. The favour was Allah's. The choice of who received it was Allah's. Envy of the receiver was, underneath, an objection to the Giver.

A classical theologian explains the background. They had assumed this great favour, the awaited prophethood, would come to their own people. When it went to the Arabs instead, envy drove them to reject it. A later commentator notes that the ayah does not even name the one envied. The omission suggests that envy is blameworthy whoever its target is.

This is where the ego has to shrink. Envy rests on an unspoken claim: that I had a right to that gift, and it was given to the wrong person. But nobody has a prior claim on Allah's favour. 'Allah knows best where He places His message' (6:124). The baker did not own the rosette. We do not own talent, wealth, children or guidance. Everything we have is faḍl, favour given beyond what we were owed.

Is it arbitrary, then, that Allah gives as He wills? Only if gifts were wages. A gift by definition is the giver's decision. What Allah asks of us is not to understand every distribution, but to stop resenting it.

The cure for envy is not to pretend the other person's gift is small. It is to remember Whose gift it was, and to ask Him for your own.

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.