Qaf · Makki · ayah 25 of 45

Qaf 50:25

مَّنَّاعٍ لِّلْخَيْرِ مُعْتَدٍ مُّرِيبٍ

“Preventer of good, aggressor, and doubter,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Three more marks of the condemned: a hand closed on all good, a foot over every limit, and a doubt that will not sit still.

A reflection

Standing in the doorway of someone else's good

A junior analyst asks her manager to sign off a course. It is free, it is relevant, and the department has the budget. He sits on the form for two months, then refuses. Over coffee he admits the real reason. She would outgrow the team. He means: she would outgrow him.

He has not stolen anything from her. He has done something quieter. He has stood in a doorway.

Mannāʿ li-l-khayr is usually read as a man who keeps his own money back. But some commentaries give a second picture. He withholds good by preventing it from reaching others. He stands between people and what would benefit them.

Several commentaries report, introducing it with 'it is said', that this was revealed about a wealthy Makkan chief. He told his brother's sons that whoever entered this religion would never receive any good from him while he lived. He used his purse as a gate. One commentary questions that link on grounds of grammar, and prefers to keep 'good' general.

One major commentary goes further. The good he blocks is faith itself, the purest good there is. He was not content to refuse it for himself. He set himself to keep it out of other hearts.

This is a warning for anyone with power. Managers, parents, elders, committee members and imams all hold doors. Each can open or close a path to growth, to knowledge, to Allah.

Leadership is measured partly by what passes through the doors you hold. A good leader asks: who has grown because I was here? The mannāʿ asks: who might rise above me if I let them through?

The form of the word matters too. Mannāʿ is intensive: someone who blocks again and again, until blocking is his way of life. Nobody starts there. It begins with one form left unsigned, one introduction never made, one door kept shut a little longer than needed.

Look at the doors you hold this week. Open one that you have been keeping shut.

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.