Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 8 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:8

أَلَّا تَطْغَوْا۟ فِى ٱلْمِيزَانِ

“That you not transgress within the balance.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The surah's first command is not 'do more' but 'do not overflow', and its verb is a river breaking its banks.

A reflection

Not only for people who sell by the kilo

Read quickly, this ayah sounds like a trading regulation. Do not transgress in the balance: do not cheat with your scales. If you do not sell things by weight, it seems to pass you by.

Two details in the commentaries widen it at once.

First, the word. One commentary pairs the two prohibitions in these ayat and separates them precisely. Ṭughyān, here, is aggression and excess: taking more than is due. The next ayah's khusrān is shortfall: giving less than is due. This ayah is about the first. Not the shopkeeper who gives you less, but anyone who takes more.

Second, the phrasing. Another commentary asks why the ayah says 'in the balance' rather than 'in the weighing'. Its answer: 'in the weighing' might suggest the prohibition covers only weighing for others. The instrument covers both directions: what you take and what you give, what you weigh for someone else and what you weigh for yourself.

A project lead counts his own late nights to the minute. He remembers every weekend he gave up. He has never once counted the junior who stayed until midnight to fix his slides. Nothing illegal has happened. But he is weighing with a thumb on his own side of the beam.

So the truer picture reaches into every exchange. The credit you take for shared work. The airtime you take in a meeting. The share of attention you take from a friend. The praise you accept for what someone else began. Each is a weighing, and in each it is possible to overflow.

Most of us are never tempted to tamper with a grocer's scale. Nearly all of us are tempted to take a little more than our share.

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.