Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 180 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:180

وَمَآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ أَجْرٍ ۖ إِنْ أَجْرِىَ إِلَّا عَلَىٰ رَبِّ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ

“And I do not ask you for it any payment. My payment is only from the Lord of the worlds.”

Saheeh International

Essence

To traders who priced everything, Shuʿayb names one service with no price: his wage is owed by the Lord of all the worlds alone.

A reflection

Not a wage, and not a rival either

This sentence returns five times in the surah. Its full treatment is at 26:109, where the picture inside ajr and the meaning of refusing payment are drawn out. Here it meets a people of the market.

Traders suspect two kinds of interest. One is a fee. The other is competition: the man who tells you to lower your margins may want your customers. Shuʿayb closes both doors. In Surah Hud he says he does not wish to do himself what he forbids them. He wants only to set things right as far as he can (11:88).

Picture a retired supermarket buyer in a village. He tells the corner shop how it could price more fairly and keep more customers. The owners nod politely and wonder whether he plans to open a shop of his own. His advice cannot land until that suspicion is gone.

Shuʿayb removes it in two sentences. No wage from you, and no stall beside yours.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.