An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 37 of 176

An-Nisa 4:37

ٱلَّذِينَ يَبْخَلُونَ وَيَأْمُرُونَ ٱلنَّاسَ بِٱلْبُخْلِ وَيَكْتُمُونَ مَآ ءَاتَىٰهُمُ ٱللَّهُ مِن فَضْلِهِۦ ۗ وَأَعْتَدْنَا لِلْكَـٰفِرِينَ عَذَابًا مُّهِينًا

“Who are stingy and enjoin upon [other] people stinginess and conceal what Allāh has given them of His bounty - and We have prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating punishment -”

Saheeh International

Essence

Stinginess here grows in three steps: keeping, then preaching it, then hiding the gift, as if what Allah poured out were never given.

A reflection

Min faḍlihi: you are holding the overflow

A family meeting about their mother's care-home fees. The eldest brother has by far the most money. He says, quite calmly: I earned every penny of mine. Nobody gave me anything.

The ayah describes people who hide 'what Allah has given them of His bounty'. Two parts of that phrase take his sentence apart.

'What Allah has given them'. The wealth is named as a gift before it is named as theirs. Then 'of His bounty', min faḍlihi. The lexicons define faḍl as the overflow, what is left over beyond the measure. One adds a key line: every gift the giver was not bound to give is called faḍl. Even earnings sought in trade are faḍl from Allah.

So the brother is not wrong that he worked. He is wrong about what the work rested on. Health to work, a mind that could learn, a market that happened to need him: none of it was owed to him. What sits in his account is overflow from Another's hand.

This is where the ego has to shrink. Stinginess is often pride in disguise. It says: this is mine, I made it, I decide. The ayah answers quietly. You were given it, from His surplus, and it is passing through your hands on its way somewhere.

Does Allah need us to admit that the gift is His? He lacks nothing. Musa told his people that if they and everyone on earth were ungrateful, Allah would still be free of need and praiseworthy (14:8). The acknowledgement changes nothing for Him. It changes the person holding the money: from owner to trustee, from fortress to channel.

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.