Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 52 of 165

Al-An'am 6:52

وَلَا تَطْرُدِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ رَبَّهُم بِٱلْغَدَوٰةِ وَٱلْعَشِىِّ يُرِيدُونَ وَجْهَهُۥ ۖ مَا عَلَيْكَ مِنْ حِسَابِهِم مِّن شَىْءٍ وَمَا مِنْ حِسَابِكَ عَلَيْهِم مِّن شَىْءٍ فَتَطْرُدَهُمْ فَتَكُونَ مِنَ ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ

“And do not send away those who call upon their Lord morning and afternoon, seeking His face [i.e., favor]. Not upon you is anything of their account and not upon them is anything of your account.[309] So were you to send them away, you would [then] be of the wrongdoers.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Men who called on their Lord morning and evening were nearly moved to a later sitting; the Quran stopped the seating plan.

A reflection

Not a kindness ayah: a ruling on who sits where

The wedding planner hands over the seating chart. The bride's great-aunt, who raised her after her mother died, is at table nineteen by the kitchen door. The top tables have gone to the groom's father's business partners. Nobody insulted her. Nobody asked her to leave. She has simply been placed.

Most of us carry this ayah as a gentle reminder to be kind to the poor. That reading is warm, and it is half right. But the words are sharper. The command is not 'be kind'. It is 'do not drive them away'. And the closing verdict is heavy: 'you would be among the wrongdoers'.

That last word opens the ayah up. The lexicons give ẓulm a plain, physical first sense: putting a thing in a place that is not its own. A herdsman did it when he poured milk from the skin before the butter had formed. Ground was 'wronged' when someone dug where no digging belonged. Several commentaries apply exactly this sense here. Sending these men away would be setting a thing in the wrong place.

The great early commentator spells it out. You would be one who put exclusion where it did not belong. You would push away those with no cause to be pushed. And you would bring near those with no claim to be brought forward.

So the ayah is not first about charity. It is about seating: who is near the centre, who is at the edge, and on what grounds. Another classical commentator draws the lesson from the ayah and its occasion together. No one is to be honoured for his standing or his fine clothes. No one is to be slighted for his obscurity or his worn garment.

The great-aunt at table nineteen is not hungry. She has been wronged in exactly this sense: moved from her place. The ayah asks us to look again at our own seating charts, wherever we draw them.

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.