All of Verses

The 365 · Verses · Day 247 · Justice


Qur'an 2:262

ٱلَّذِينَ يُنفِقُونَ أَمْوَٰلَهُمْ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ثُمَّ لَا يُتْبِعُونَ مَآ أَنفَقُوا۟ مَنًّا وَلَآ أَذًى ۙ لَّهُمْ أَجْرُهُمْ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ

Those who spend their wealth in God's cause, and do not follow their spending with reminders of their benevolence or hurtful words, will have their rewards with their Lord: no fear for them, nor will they grieve. (Quran 2:262)

Svenska: De som ger av sin egendom för Guds sak och inte låter gåvan följas av påminnelser om deras frikostighet eller sårande ord, dem väntar belning av deras Herre. (Koranen 2:262)

A reflection to carry

Allah, after painting the seven-hundred-grain multiplier in 2:261, immediately turned to protect the multiplier from being canceled. He named two cancellers: mann (reminding the recipient of your benevolence) and adhā (hurting them with words about the giving). Imagine the brother you helped financially last year. You see him at the masjid. You smile. You say 'remember when I helped you with the rent?' That is mann. Or: 'you should be careful next time, not everyone is generous like me.' That is adhā. Allah said: the reward is canceled. The seven-hundred grains turn back into nothing. Your charity, multiplied so vast, dissolves in a single sentence. Ya akhī, ya ukhtī, this is one of the most operational protections of giving in the Quran. The Prophet ﷺ explained: three are not addressed by Allah on the Day: the one who lets his garment drag in pride, the one who sells with false oaths, AND al-mannān, the one who reminds his recipients of his giving (Muslim 106). Three categories. One of them is the reminder of benevolence. Why? Because mann reveals the niyyah: the giver was giving for the giver, not for Allah. The recipient was a stage; the donation was a performance. The cancellation is fitting: the deed was never for Allah, so Allah does not receive it.

Read the longer reflection

Yā Rabb, You painted the seven-hundred-grain multiplier and immediately, in the very next verse, named the two pesticides that would kill the crop. Mann. Adhā. The reminder. The hurt. Forgive me, ya Allāh, for every mann I have committed. The conversation where I mentioned the loan I gave to a brother years ago. The family discussion where I noted, for the third time, the help I extended at the wedding. The text where I asked indirectly for acknowledgment of a kindness I had performed. Each was a small mann, in Your naming, and each cancelled what would have been seven-hundred-grain crops in my akhirah field. Forgive me. Strip the habit from me. Train my tongue to forget what my hand gave. Train my chest to never need acknowledgment from a recipient. Train my niyyah to be so locked on Your pleasure that the human receiver is invisible in my memory. The Prophet ﷺ described the secret giver whose left hand does not know what the right hand has given. Make me one of them. And ya Allāh, if I have wounded someone by a mann they did not deserve, send the wound back through me with healing, not theirs. They received a help; they should not have had to pay it back in shame. Let me apologize where appropriate. Let me give again, this time silently. And let the grains of my future giving be untouched by either pesticide. Multiplied. Seven hundred. And beyond. Āmīn ya Karīm.

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

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