An-Najm · Makki · ayah 48 of 62

An-Najm 53:48

وَأَنَّهُۥ هُوَ أَغْنَىٰ وَأَقْنَىٰ

“And that it is He who enriches and suffices”

Saheeh International

Essence

He is the One who meets your need and then gives you something to keep, and the most precious thing kept is a contented heart.

A reflection

Neither hustle nor luck

Two brothers run identical dry-cleaning shops at opposite ends of the same high street. Same hours, same prices, same back-breaking Saturdays. One shop thrives; the other closes after four years. The successful brother tells his son, over dinner, 'The market rewards whoever works hardest.' His son, who has seen his uncle's hands, says nothing.

One classical commentator, explaining these ayat, named two common beliefs about wealth. Some people, he said, think riches and poverty follow only from a person's own effort: whoever earns grows rich, whoever is lazy grows poor. Others think it is all luck, written in the stars. The ayah answers both. Wa-annahu huwa aghnā wa-aqnā: and that it is He who enriched and gave to keep. And the next ayah, He is the Lord of the star, answers the ones who look to the sky.

Notice the emphatic huwa, He. It appears here because this is exactly where people are most tempted to take the credit.

The first belief is the more seductive one, because it flatters us. If wealth is mine by effort, then I deserve it, and the poor deserve their poverty. The ego swells, and compassion shrinks. The second belief is passive and fearful, always checking the horoscope.

The ayah does not cancel effort. The Quran praises striving everywhere, and this passage has just said a person has only what they strove for (53:39). But striving is the means, not the source. The brother who closed worked as hard. Allah decided which effort would bear fruit, and why, for reasons we may never see.

So if you are doing well this year, be careful with the dinner-table sentence. It is not false that you worked. It is false that the work explains everything. Say instead: He enriched. Your pride shrinks a little. And your brother, at the other end of the street, stops being a lesson in laziness and becomes a man you can help.

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.