Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 57 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:57

قُلْ مَآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ أَجْرٍ إِلَّا مَن شَآءَ أَن يَتَّخِذَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِۦ سَبِيلًا

“Say, "I do not ask of you for it any payment - only that whoever wills might take to his Lord a way."”

Saheeh International

Essence

He asked for nothing, and the one 'fee' he named was your own road home to your Lord.

A reflection

The only fee is your own good

The sentence has a strange shape. I ask you no wage for it, the Messenger ﷺ is told to say, except whoever wills to take a path to his Lord. On the surface, the exception sounds like a fee after all. Read it slowly and the fee turns out to be the listener's own gain.

One classical commentary explains the shape with a picture. Someone who cares for you has worked hard to secure you some money. He says: I want no reward for my trouble, except that you look after this money and do not waste it. Keeping your own money is not a payment to him. But he names it as one, and so does two things at once.

First, he pulls every suspicion of greed out by the root. If guarding your own wealth counts as my wage, he says in effect, then yes, I want a wage. Second, he shows how much he cares. Your keeping what is yours would please him the way pay pleases a hired man.

Picture a retired mechanic who spends a Saturday teaching his niece to change the oil in her first car. She tries to give him twenty pounds. He waves it away. My only fee, he says, is that you check your tyres every month. She laughs, because the fee is her own safety.

That is the tone of this ayah. Most commentaries call the exception 'disconnected': it is not really a wage at all. Whatever path the listener takes to Allah, the benefit lands on the listener. Yet the Messenger ﷺ speaks of it as if it were his reward, because their good is what he wants.

So the next time this ayah is recited, hear what it is really asking. Not your money, not your praise, not your loyalty to a man. Only that you do not waste yourself.

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.