The 365 · Verses · Day 96 · Family
Give kin their right, the poor, the wayfarer. Do not squander. Those who squander are the brothers of the shayāṭīn.
Qur'an Q 17:26-27
وَءَاتِ ذَا ٱلْقُرْبَىٰ حَقَّهُۥ وَٱلْمِسْكِينَ وَٱبْنَ ٱلسَّبِيلِ وَلَا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيرًا
“Give relatives their due, and the needy, and travellers, do not squander your wealth wastefully: those who squander are the brothers of Satan, and Satan is most ungrateful to his Lord. (Abdel Haleem)”
Svenska: Och ge den nära anförvanten vad han med rätta väntar och [ge till] den behövande och vandringsmannen, men slösa inte över all måtta. Slösarna är demonernas bröder och Djävulen visade stor otacksamhet mot sin Herre. (Knut Bernström)
The story
Ibn Kathir cites Ibn Masʿūd's definition of tabdhīr: 'spending extravagantly when it is not appropriate.' Mujāhid: 'If a man spends all his wealth on appropriate things, he is not a spendthrift; if he spends a little inappropriately, he is a spendthrift.' Qatādah: 'Extravagance means spending money on sin in disobeying Allah, on wrongful and corrupt things.' Ibn Kathir adds the hadith of the man from Banū Tamīm who came to the Prophet ﷺ asking how to spend; the Prophet ﷺ told him to pay zakāh, maintain ties of kinship, attend to the rights of the beggar, the neighbor, and the poor, then recited 17:26 to him.
In the language
حَقَّهُ (ḥaqqahu, 'his right') is from h-q-q. The kin's portion is named not as charity (ṣadaqah) but as a ḥaqq (right). The kin is owed; the giver is paying what is owed, not bestowing a favor. تُبَذِّرْ (tubadhdhir) is from b-dh-r, the root of seed-scattering. The image is of seeds thrown to the ground without intent to grow them: pure waste. إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينِ (ikhwān ash-shayāṭīn, 'brothers of the shayāṭīn') is the structural identification: those who waste are the spiritual siblings of the demons.
Why this verse
Q 17:26-27 follows directly after the Quran's command on parents (17:23-24). The structural progression: after parents, give kin their right (ḥaqq, the same word as the legal due), then the poor, then the wayfarer. Then the verse pivots: do not squander. The verse's severity is structural: those who squander are named as brothers of the shayāṭīn.
Bring it into today
Audit one month of spending. Categorize each expense: (1) ḥaqq (kin, poor, wayfarer, family needs); (2) necessary (food, shelter, transport, ʿilm); (3) frivolous (luxury, status, social-pressure consumption). The third category is what 17:27 names. Reduce it. Redirect the redirected wealth to the first category.
A reflection to carry
The verse's word for kin's portion (ḥaqq, right) reframes the entire transaction. The believer who gives to a relative is not bestowing charity; he is paying a debt that Allah has placed on him. This reframing has practical implications: the giver does not feel above; the receiver does not feel below. Both are operating within Allah's economy of duty. The verse then closes with the warning against squandering: those who waste are not just imprudent, they are ikhwān ash-shayāṭīn. The pairing is structural: spend on what Allah commands (kin, poor, wayfarer); do not spend on what He forbids (extravagance, sin, frivolity).
Read the longer reflection
The hadith Ibn Kathir cites of the man from Banū Tamīm is operationally precise. The man asked: 'I have a lot of wealth, family, children, and the refinements of city life, so tell me how I should spend.' The Prophet ﷺ named four targets: zakāh, ties of kinship, beggars, neighbors and the poor. Then he recited 17:26 to seal the categories. The hadith is the worked example for the modern Muslim with disposable income: the four channels are the divinely named ones; everything else risks being tabdhīr. Modern excessive spending on luxury, status goods, social-pressure consumption, brand-driven purchases, and frivolous travel often falls in the squandering category. The verse's name for the squanderer is the same as the spiritual category for Iblīs's siblings.
Sources: Ibn Kathir. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
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