The 365 · Verses · Day 149 · Charity
When you hesitate to give: that voice is Shayṭān. Allah's promise is the opposite.
Qur'an Quran 2:268
ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ يَعِدُكُمُ ٱلْفَقْرَ وَيَأْمُرُكُم بِٱلْفَحْشَآءِ ۖ وَٱللَّهُ يَعِدُكُم مَّغْفِرَةً مِّنْهُ وَفَضْلًا ۗ وَٱللَّهُ وَٰسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ
“Satan threatens you with the prospect of poverty and commands you to do foul deeds; God promises you His forgiveness and His abundance: God is limitless and all knowing. (Abdel Haleem)”
Svenska: Djävulen hotar er med fattigdom och uppmanar er att begå skamlösa handlingar, men Gud lovar er Sin förlåtelse och Sin nåd. Gud når överallt och Han vet allt. (Knut Bernström)
The story
Ibn Kathīr cites the Prophetic hadith (Tirmidhī 2988): 'There are two whisperings in the heart: a whispering from the angel calling to good and confirming the truth, and a whispering from Shayṭān calling to evil and denying the truth.' The Prophet ﷺ then recited Q 2:268. The hadith establishes the structural reality: the heart hears two voices; the believer's discipline is to recognize which is which.
In the language
Shayṭān's promise (yaʿidukum) is in the same form as Allah's promise (yaʿidukum): both literally 'promise.' But Shayṭān's promise is poverty-threat; Allah's promise is forgiveness-and-abundance. The Quran preserves the structural symmetry to highlight the divergent content.
Why this verse
Q 2:268 names the structural opposition: Shayṭān's tactic vs Allah's promise. Shayṭān threatens with poverty (al-faqr) and commands faḥshāʺ (foul deeds, especially stinginess); Allah promises forgiveness and abundance (faḍl). The structural choice: which voice the believer listens to determines whether he gives or withholds.
Bring it into today
Notice the inner voice when about to give charity: is it 'you cannot afford this' (Shayṭān) or 'Allah will multiply this' (the angelic voice)? The Quran explicitly identifies the source of each voice. The discipline: when the poverty-fear voice arises, recognize it as Shayṭān; when the abundance-promise voice arises, recognize it as Allah's promise.
A reflection to carry
The verse names the structural opposition between Shayṭān's poverty-threat and Allah's abundance-promise. The believer who internalizes this verse can identify the source of his hesitation when about to give: the fear-voice is named; it is Shayṭān.
Read the longer reflection
The classical scholars (Ibn Kathīr, ar-Rāzī) treat this verse as the structural psychological diagnostic for the giver's hesitation. Every believer experiences the moment of hesitation before giving: 'will I have enough?' The verse names this hesitation by its source (Shayṭān) and offers the corrective (Allah's named promise). The Companions absorbed this so completely that the structural reflex when about to give became: identify the hesitation as Shayṭān; give anyway.
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.
A verse, a healing, and a Sunnah, every morning.
Subscribe, free