All of Verses

The 365 · Verses · Day 233 · Justice


Qur'an 11:85

وَيَـٰقَوْمِ أَوْفُوا۟ ٱلْمِكْيَالَ وَٱلْمِيزَانَ بِٱلْقِسْطِ ۖ وَلَا تَبْخَسُوا۟ ٱلنَّاسَ أَشْيَآءَهُمْ وَلَا تَعْثَوْا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ مُفْسِدِينَ

My people, in fairness, give full measure and weight. Do not withhold from people things that are rightly theirs, and do not spread corruption in the land. (Quran 11:85, Shuʿayb to his people of Madyan)

Svenska: Mitt folk! Mät och väg med rättvis våg och tillskansa er inte vad som tillkommer andra och var inte ute efter att skada eller fördärva på jorden. (Koranen 11:85)

A reflection to carry

Allah closed the mīzān cluster by sending us back to a marketplace. Shuʿayb, the prophet of Madyan, stood among his people and said: ya qawmi, awfū al-mikyala wa al-mīzāna bi-l-qisṭ. My people, give full measure and full weight by qisṭ. He did not begin with salāh. He did not begin with creed. He began with the scale. Why? Because Madyan was a trading civilization, and Allah sent prophets to the points of pain. Madyan's disease was the sūq. Their scales were tilted. Their measures were short. The next verses describe how they killed him, mocked him, refused him. And then Allah destroyed them with the cry of the earthquake. Read the surah; the punishment is named explicitly because of the scale. Ya akhī, ya ukhtī, civilizations have ended over the sūq. Empires have collapsed over tilted measures. Allah does not let a society sustain itself when its scales are corrupt. He may delay the punishment by a generation, two, three. But it comes. So we close the mīzān cluster with the simplest application: in your industry, in your salary, in your invoices, in your billing, in your conversations, give full measure. Do not withhold what is rightly theirs. Do not corrupt the earth. Shuʿayb was speaking to the people of Madyan. He is, by extension, speaking to every Muslim entrepreneur, every Muslim accountant, every Muslim manager, every Muslim parent dividing inheritance. The scale is in your hand. He has named the consequence of tilting it.

Read the longer reflection

Yā Rabb, You closed the mīzān cluster the way only You could close it. You raised the sky on a balance (Day 230). You forbade transgression in it (Day 231). You commanded its uprightness (Day 232). You revealed the scales of the Last Day where not a mustard seed is lost (Day 229). And then You closed with a prophet standing in a marketplace, addressing his people in the gentlest language he could find, calling them 'my people,' and asking them to give full measure. They refused. They mocked him. They killed him. And You shook the earth from beneath their feet. Ya Allāh, this is not ancient history. This is You teaching every believer who has ever held a cash register, every Muslim landlord, every Muslim contractor, every Muslim writer of an invoice, every Muslim parent dividing an inheritance, every Muslim wage-payer to a worker, every Muslim engineer charging by the hour, that the mīzān is the pillar under our civilization. Tilt it, and You bring it down. Honor it, and You bless it. Forgive me, ya Rabb, for every tilted gram I have left on a scale somewhere in my past. Bring them to my conscience this week so I can make them right. The brother I overcharged, let me find a way to refund. The cousin I underpaid, let me make it up with interest given as a gift. The customer I gave less than promised, let me reach out. And from this point forward, let me be a believer whom the prophet Shuʿayb (peace be upon him) would have stood next to in the sūq of Madyan without rebuke. Let my measure be full. Let my weight be full. Let my words about transactions be full. And let me, in every sphere I influence, be a voice for those who keep the scale upright, against the soft pressure of an industry that has normalized small ṭughyān. Ya Allāh, You ended a civilization over the scale. Do not let me, or my children, or my children's children, be among those whose hands tilt it. Begin with mine today. Āmīn ya ʿAdl, ya Muqsiṭ.

A verse, a healing, and a Sunnah, every morning.

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