The 365 · Verses · Day 232 · Justice
Qur'an 55:9
وَأَقِيمُوا۟ ٱلْوَزْنَ بِٱلْقِسْطِ وَلَا تُخْسِرُوا۟ ٱلْمِيزَانَ
“Weigh with justice and do not fall short in the balance. (Quran 55:9)”
Svenska: Tänk därför [alltid] på den rätta vikten och väg inte med för snil vikt! (Koranen 55:9)
A reflection to carry
Allah closed the cosmic mīzān sequence (55:7-9) with the action verbs. Wa aqīmū al-wazna bi-l-qisṭ: establish the weight in justice. Aqīmū is the same verb used for salāh: aqīmū al-ṣalāh. Establish it. Stand it up. Make it firm. Allah used the same verb for the prayer and for the scale, because to Him both are pillars of the believer's standing. Then He said: wa lā tukhsirū al-mīzān. Do not cause the balance to lose. The verb tukhsirū is from the same root as khāsirūn, the losers. As if to say: when you cheat the scale, you do not cheat the customer; you make YOURSELF the loser. Allah is teaching the spiritual physics of injustice: the moment you tilt a scale in your favor, the loss is recorded against your own akhirah account. The gram you stole is the gram you owe. The minute you stretched on the timesheet is the minute you took from your own reward. Ya akhī, ya ukhtī, this is one of the most under-internalized teachings of the Quran. Tilting the scale does not benefit you. It transfers from your own hereafter into the seller's hereafter via Allah's reckoning. The honest hand is the prosperous hand, ultimately. The dishonest hand is the empty hand, ultimately.
Read the longer reflection
Yā Rabb, You closed the three-verse sequence of the cosmic mīzān with the command verbs. Aqīmū. La tukhsirū. Establish. Do not cause to lose. And You used 'aqīmū,' the same verb You use for the establishment of salāh, as if to remind me that the upright scale is not optional, not a side virtue. It is a pillar. Then You used 'tukhsirū,' the verb of the khāsirūn, the losers. To make crystal clear that the believer who shaves a gram from a customer's purchase is shaving a gram from their own akhirah account. The transaction does not stay in this dunyā. It books itself, in Your records, against the cheater, every time. Forgive me, ya Allah. Forgive me for every micro-cheat I have justified as 'industry standard.' The slightly stretched mileage claim. The slightly inflated rate. The slightly diminished portion to a customer. The slightly truncated information to a buyer. Each was a small tukhsirūī, a small entry against my own self in Your ledger. Repair them. Bring them to my mind so I can return what was wrongly taken. The brother whose change I shortchanged seven years ago, let me find a way to send it back even if anonymously. The customer who paid for more than I delivered, let me reach out. The employee whose hours I underreported, let me reconcile. And from this day forward, ya Allāh, let my hand only know aqīmū al-wazna bi-l-qisṭ. Establish weight by qisṭ. Not by mood. Not by self-interest. Not by industry norm. By Your standard. And let me find, decade by decade, that the honest scale produced honest barakah, while the tilted scale would have eaten my entire Ākhirah pension one gram at a time. Āmīn ya Qist.
A verse, a healing, and a Sunnah, every morning.
Subscribe, free