The Quran

وَاللَّهُ فَضَّلَ بَعضَكُم عَلىٰ بَعضٍ فِي الرِّزقِ ۚ فَمَا الَّذينَ فُضِّلوا بِرادّي رِزقِهِم عَلىٰ ما مَلَكَت أَيمانُهُم فَهُم فيهِ سَواءٌ ۚ أَفَبِنِعمَةِ اللَّهِ يَجحَدونَ

Muhammad Asad

And on some of you God has bestowed more abundant means of sustenance than on others: and yet, they who are more abundantly favoured are [often] unwilling to share their sustenance with those whom their right hands possess, so that they [all] might be equal in this respect.¹ Will they, then, God's blessings [thus] deny?

The phrase "to share their sustenance with...", etc., reads, literally, "to turn over their sustenance to". The expression "those whom their right hands possess" (i.e., "those whom they rightfully possess") may relate either to slaves taken captive in a war in God's cause (see surah 2, notes 167 and 168, and surah 8, note 72) or, metonymically, to all who are dependent on others for their livelihood and thus become the latters' responsibility. The placing of one's dependants on an equal footing with oneself with regard to the basic necessities of life is a categorical demand of Islam; thus, the Prophet said: "They are your brethren, these dependants of yours (khawalukum) whom God has placed under your authority [lit., "under your hand"]. Hence, whoso has his brother under his authority shall give him to eat of what he eats himself, and shall clothe him with what he clothes himself. And do not burden them with anything that may be beyond their strength; but if you [must] burden them, help them yourselves." (This authentic Tradition, recorded by Bukhari in several variants in his Sahih, appears in the compilations of Muslim, Tirmidhi and Ibn Hanbal as well.) However, men often fail to live up to this consciousness of moral responsibility: and this failure amounts, as the sequence shows, to a denial of God's blessings and of His unceasing care for all His creatures.