Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 67 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:67

وَٱلَّذِينَ إِذَآ أَنفَقُوا۟ لَمْ يُسْرِفُوا۟ وَلَمْ يَقْتُرُوا۟ وَكَانَ بَيْنَ ذَٰلِكَ قَوَامًا

“And [they are] those who, when they spend, do so not excessively or sparingly but are ever, between that, [justly] moderate”

Saheeh International

Essence

They spend like water that stops at the roots: not running off to waste, and not held back until the palms go thirsty.

A reflection

Moderation is not penny-pinching

Many people hear this ayah as a blessing on frugality. Do not overspend; be careful with money; saving is a virtue. The half of the ayah about waste is remembered. The half about stinginess is quietly dropped.

Yet the ayah names two faults, side by side, with equal weight. Lam yusrifū: they do not go beyond the limit. Wa-lam yaqturū: and they do not pinch. One concise commentary says the spending in view is first of all on their families. Another explains the stinting as falling short of what Allah commanded, including what is owed to those one supports.

A father switches the heating off at nine every night and keeps a spreadsheet of the family's savings. He is proud that nothing is wasted. His daughter has never been allowed a school trip. By his own lights he is moderate. By the ayah's, he has failed one of its two tests as surely as a spendthrift fails the other.

The commentaries also widen what 'excess' means. One early reading says excess is spending in disobedience to Allah, however little. Spending in obedience, however much, is not excess. One early teacher put it starkly: if you spent a mountain of gold in obedience to Allah, it would not be waste. A single measure of grain spent in sin would be.

A man once heard someone say, 'There is no good in excess'. He replied: 'There is no excess in good'.

So the ayah is not a rule about spending less. It is about spending rightly: enough for what is owed, nothing for what is wrong.

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.