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القرآن
3 The human being and his deeds 5 / 7

Wealth is a trust

Observation 3 examples 1 min

When the text commands spending, it recalls that the human being is only a trustee of what he owns, and that everything returns to God. Stinginess is then set before the One who is Self-Sufficient.

Sura 57 links these three ideas. First the command, with its reason: "spend from that which He has made you trustees of" (57:7). Then the question: "what is [the matter] with you that you do not spend in the way of God, while to God belongs the inheritance of the heavens and the earth?" (57:10). What one keeps, one does not keep: it will return to its owner.

Finally the stingy: "Those who are stingy and enjoin stinginess upon people. And whoever turns away — indeed God is the Self-Sufficient, the Praiseworthy." (57:24). It is the same pair as in sura 92, where the one who withholds "considers himself self-sufficient" (92:8): the stingy one believes he needs nothing, whereas only God does not (“Seeing oneself self-sufficient, the reverse of purifying oneself”).

The same sura describes the present life as "rivalry in accumulation of goods and children" (57:20), the very words that open sura 102.

In the text

Example 57:7
وَأَنفِقُوا۟ مِمَّا جَعَلَكُم مُّسْتَخْلَفِينَ فِيهِ
“spend from that which He has made you trustees of”
The command to spend, with its reason: you are only trustees.
Example 57:10
وَلِلَّهِ مِيرَٰثُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ
“to God belongs the inheritance of the heavens and the earth”
Everything returns to its owner.
Example 57:24
فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ هُوَ ٱلْغَنِىُّ ٱلْحَمِيدُ
“God is the Self-Sufficient, the Praiseworthy.”
The stingy set before the Self-Sufficient.