The Quran

117

Preface

مَثَلُ ما يُنفِقونَ في هٰذِهِ الحَياةِ الدُّنيا كَمَثَلِ ريحٍ فيها صِرٌّ أَصابَت حَرثَ قَومٍ ظَلَموا أَنفُسَهُم فَأَهلَكَتهُ ۚ وَما ظَلَمَهُمُ اللَّهُ وَلٰكِن أَنفُسَهُم يَظلِمونَ

Yusuf Ali

What they spend in the life of this (material) world May be likened to a wind which brings a nipping frost: It strikes and destroys the harvest of men who have wronged their own souls: it is not God that hath wronged them, but they wrong themselves.¹

False “spending” may be either in false “charity” or in having a “good time”. For the man who resists God’s purpose, neither of them is any good. The essence of charity is faith and love. Where these are wanting, charity is not charity. Some baser motive is there: ostentation, or even worse, getting a person into the giver’s power by a pretence of charity: something that is connected with the life of this grasping, material world. What happens? You expect a good harvest. But “while you think, good easy man, for surely your greatness is a-ripening,” there comes a nipping frost, and destroys all your hopes. The frost is some calamity, or the fact that you are found out! Or perhaps it is “High blown pride,” as in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, 2:3. In your despair you may blame blind Fate or you may blame God! Blind Fate does not exist, for there is God’s Providence, which is just and good. The harm or injustice has come, not from God, but from your own soul. You wronged your soul, and it suffered the frost. Your base motive brought you no good: it may have reduced you to poverty, shame, and disgrace. All the brave show of the wicked in this life is but a wind charged with evil to themselves.