The Quran

Preface

يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنوا إِذا ناجَيتُمُ الرَّسولَ فَقَدِّموا بَينَ يَدَي نَجواكُم صَدَقَةً ۚ ذٰلِكَ خَيرٌ لَكُم وَأَطهَرُ ۚ فَإِن لَم تَجِدوا فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفورٌ رَحيمٌ

Yusuf Ali

O ye who believe! When ye consult the Messenger in private,¹ spend something in charity before your private consultation. That will be best for you, and most conducive to purity (of conduct).² But if ye find not (the wherewithal), God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

In the Kingdom of God all instruction or consultation is open and free. But human nature is weak. And people want special instruction or private consultation with the Teacher from one of several motives: (1) they may have, or think they have, a special case, which they are not willing to disclose to their brethren in general; (2) they may have some sense of delicacy or dignity, which can only be satisfied by a private interview; (3) they may even be selfish enough to want to monopolise the Teacher’s time. These motives are, in an ascending order, worth discouraging; and yet, considering the weakness of human nature, they cannot be reprobated to the extent of shutting out their victims from chances of improvement. It is therefore recommended that they spend something in charity for the good of their poorer brethren before they indulge in such weaknesses.
The charity is a sort of expiation for their pardonable weakness. Having made some monetary sacrifice for their poorer brethren they could face them with less shame, and the charity would direct their attention to the need for purifying their motives and conduct At the same time, this special charity is not made obligatory, lest such persons should be shut out altogether from chances of the higher teaching on account of their pardonable foibles.