An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 39 of 176

An-Nisa 4:39

وَمَاذَا عَلَيْهِمْ لَوْ ءَامَنُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ وَٱلْيَوْمِ ٱلْـَٔاخِرِ وَأَنفَقُوا۟ مِمَّا رَزَقَهُمُ ٱللَّهُ ۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ بِهِمْ عَلِيمًا

“And what [harm would come] upon them if they believed in Allāh and the Last Day and spent out of what Allāh provided for them? And Allāh is ever, about them, Knowing.”

Saheeh International

Essence

One gentle, cutting question: what would it really have cost them to believe and to give, asked by the One who knows them fully?

A reflection

He knows what you would have done

A man has given a monthly sum to his mosque for years. His name sits on the donors' board in the entrance. Then the board is redesigned, and his name is left off by mistake. Within two months he has quietly cancelled the payment. Nobody notices.

The ayah ends: 'And Allah is ever Knowing of them.' One commentary explains why it ends there. The intention to be seen is hidden, never on the surface. So Allah declares that He knows inner things exactly as He knows outer ones. Whoever truly believes that, it adds, finds it a brake on the sins of the heart: hypocrisy, showing off, wanting to be talked about.

Another commentary goes further. Allah knows their real states and their possible ones. He knows what they did, and what they would have done had they believed and given.

That is where the ego shrinks. We manage our reputations carefully. We choose which deeds people see, and which motives they hear about. But every one of us is fully known, down to the deeds we never did, and why we did not do them.

The man with the cancelled payment has hidden nothing that matters. The board was never the point. It only showed him what the point had become.

Does Allah need us to know that He knows? He needs nothing from us. The knowledge serves us. It frees us from performing for crowds who see so little. It also comforts those whose quiet giving no board will ever record.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.