Ar-Rum · Makki · ayah 28 of 60

Ar-Rum 30:28

ضَرَبَ لَكُم مَّثَلًا مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ ۖ هَل لَّكُم مِّن مَّا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَـٰنُكُم مِّن شُرَكَآءَ فِى مَا رَزَقْنَـٰكُمْ فَأَنتُمْ فِيهِ سَوَآءٌ تَخَافُونَهُمْ كَخِيفَتِكُمْ أَنفُسَكُمْ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ نُفَصِّلُ ٱلْـَٔايَـٰتِ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْقِلُونَ

“He presents to you an example from yourselves. Do you have among those whom your right hands possess [i.e., slaves] any partners in what We have provided for you so that you are equal therein [and] would fear them as your fear of one another [within a partnership]?[1144] Thus do We detail the verses for a people who use reason.”

Saheeh International

Essence

You would never make someone you own an equal partner in your provision; how then could anything He owns share what is His?

A reflection

Your wealth is a gift, and you still guard it

Notice the small phrase in the middle of the parable: fī mā razaqnākum, 'in what We have provided you'. Even while asking about your money, Allah reminds you whose money it is.

Picture a man who has run a small printing business for twenty years. His longest-serving employee has been there for eighteen. She is loyal, skilled, almost family. One day she half-jokingly suggests they open a joint account, equal access, equal say. He laughs, but he will not do it. It is his business. He built it.

The ayah does not condemn his instinct. It uses it. A classical commentator drew out the force. What you hold is not truly yours. It is Allah's provision, and what comes from Allah truly belongs to Him. You will not accept a partner in what is yours only in name. How then could He have a partner in what is His in reality?

That turns the instinct round on the ego. We guard our borrowed things fiercely. We bristle when someone presumes on our property, our position, our credit. Yet the same heart casually hands a share of Allah's rights to created things. A share of our fear goes to people's opinions. A share of our hope goes to the market. A share of our trust goes to our own cleverness.

Pride lives in that gap. We are owners when it comes to what we have, and generous with what belongs to Him.

This is not the complaint of a possessive ruler afraid of losing something. Allah loses nothing if every creature associates partners with Him. The parable is for us. It holds up our own unbending sense of ownership and asks us to be at least as honest about His.

Try it once today. Look at something you would never share equally, and say: this too is mā razaqnākum.

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.