'Abasa · Makki · ayah 5 of 42

'Abasa 80:5

أَمَّا مَنِ ٱسْتَغْنَىٰ

“As for he who thinks himself without need,[1855]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The real divide is not rich and poor, but the one who feels he has enough and the one who knows he does not.

A reflection

Settled, and needing nowhere else

The root of istaghnā is sufficiency: having enough, so that no want remains. The lexicons give a quiet, domestic picture, and it is well established. People were said to ghanū in a place when they settled there content, needing nowhere else. Their homes were called maghānī: the places where they had enough. Only from there did the root come to mean wealth. Money is one way of having enough. It is not the only one, and not the deepest.

The form used in this ayah adds something. Istaghnā carries a sense of seeking and supposing. It is not simply 'he had enough'. It is 'he saw himself as having enough', 'he made himself out to need nothing'. The commentators fill in the object: he felt no need of Allah, of faith, of the guidance and knowledge the Prophet ﷺ was offering.

Picture a retired couple who have moved to a cottage at the end of a village lane. The garden is perfect. The freezer is full. Neighbours invite them to the village fête. The new family asks them round for tea. The answer is always polite and always the same: 'That's kind, but we have everything we need here'. They are not unkind people. They have simply closed the gate from the inside.

That is the posture this ayah describes. Not necessarily wealth, and not necessarily arrogance in the loud sense. Just a settledness that has stopped expecting anything to come through the gate. The man the Prophet ﷺ was courting had settled into his own house of opinions, and needed nowhere else.

Now set him beside the blind man. One felt he had enough; the other knew he did not. One had to be pursued; the other came on his own. The irony at the heart of this passage is plain. Attention flowed towards the one who did not want it, and away from the one who was asking for it.

It is worth asking where we ourselves have settled. There may be some area of faith where we have closed the gate: a question we no longer ask, a teaching we no longer seek. The maghānī are comfortable. That is exactly the danger.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.