The Quran

Preface

ها أَنتُم هٰؤُلاءِ تُدعَونَ لِتُنفِقوا في سَبيلِ اللَّهِ فَمِنكُم مَن يَبخَلُ ۖ وَمَن يَبخَل فَإِنَّما يَبخَلُ عَن نَفسِهِ ۚ وَاللَّهُ الغَنِيُّ وَأَنتُمُ الفُقَراءُ ۚ وَإِن تَتَوَلَّوا يَستَبدِل قَومًا غَيرَكُم ثُمَّ لا يَكونوا أَمثالَكُم

Yusuf Ali

Behold, ye are those¹ invited to spend (of your substance) in the Way of God. But among you are some that are niggardly. But any who are niggardly are so at the expense of their own souls. But God is free of all wants, and it is ye that are needy. If ye turn back² (from the Path), He will substitute in your stead another people; then they would not be like you!

Here the cases of the special devotee and of the average man with his human foibles are distinguished. Stinginess is not a virtue: it hurts more the finer nature of the individual practising it than it hurts the Cause. God is free of all wants and independent of any need that we can meet. His Cause is similarly independent of human aid. But it uses human agency for our own human advancement. The need to be able to serve God’s cause is ours. We are the needy beggars who should claim the privilege before the Lord of Bounties unbounded. (R).
If we desert the Cause, the Cause will not fail. Better men than we will uphold the flag. But we should fall, and others will take our place, who are not so timid, half-hearted, or stingy. In Wordsworth’s words, “High Heaven rejects the lore of nicely calculated less or more.”