Al-Hashr · Madani · ayah 9 of 24

Al-Hashr 59:9

وَٱلَّذِينَ تَبَوَّءُو ٱلدَّارَ وَٱلْإِيمَـٰنَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ يُحِبُّونَ مَنْ هَاجَرَ إِلَيْهِمْ وَلَا يَجِدُونَ فِى صُدُورِهِمْ حَاجَةً مِّمَّآ أُوتُوا۟ وَيُؤْثِرُونَ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ وَلَوْ كَانَ بِهِمْ خَصَاصَةٌ ۚ وَمَن يُوقَ شُحَّ نَفْسِهِۦ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ

“And [also for] those who were settled in the Home [i.e.,al-Madīnah] and [adopted] the faith before them.[1656] They love those who emigrated to them and find not any want in their breasts of what they [i.e., the emigrants] were given but give [them] preference over themselves, even though they are in privation. And whoever is protected from the stinginess of his soul - it is those who will be the successful.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Before a single migrant arrived, the Anṣār had already made room in their hearts, which is why what they gave away never felt like loss.

A reflection

Love that will not get back up again

A camel trainer spends weeks trying to make a kneeling camel rise again. Once it has settled into a good patch of shade, it simply will not be moved. The lexicons picture ḥubb, love, with exactly this image: a camel that kneels down and will not get up. Love, in this root, is the heart settling in one place and refusing to leave it.

This is the word chosen for how the Anṣār received people who were, by any ordinary measure, a serious burden on their city. Strangers with no land, no trade, no local ties, arriving in numbers large enough to strain any host's resources. Yuḥibbūna, they loved them, not merely tolerated or accommodated them. The heart had knelt down in that direction and would not rise again, whatever the arrival actually cost the household that had settled there first.

This is worth noticing because hospitality and love are not automatically the same thing. A host can feed a guest generously while counting, quietly, the days until the visit ends. The Anṣār's welcome is described in the stronger word precisely because it did not work that way. The kneeling had already happened before the first migrant's foot touched Madinah's soil, and nothing that followed moved it.

This is also a useful test for anyone's own welcome of a difficult arrival. A relative moving in, a refugee family resettled nearby, a colleague whose presence changes an established team. The question worth asking is not whether the welcome was polite. It is whether the heart, somewhere beneath the politeness, has actually knelt down, or is still quietly waiting to stand back up again.

The full entry has 7 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.