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fa-ʾāti dhā l-qurbā ḥaqqahū wa-l-miskīna wa-bna s-sabīli dhālika khayrun li-lladhīna yurīdūna wajha llāhi wa-ʾulāʾika humu l-mufliḥūna
Give the relative his due, and the needy and the traveller [as well]. That is better for those who seek Allah’s pleasure, and it is they who are the felicitous.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Ar-Room – Verse 38
38. “So give what is due to kindred, the needy, and the wayfarer, that is best for those who seek the pleasure of Allah, and those are they that are prosperous.”
The real owner of properties is Allah, and then it is He Who defines how the properties must be used. In spending out and helping others, relatives are prior to every other one, either. Therefore, this verse says:
At the time of affluence, you should not think that whatever provision you have, you are the owner of it, but others have a share in it, too, among them are your relatives and the needy who are paralytic because of the intensity of poverty, and also those reputable persons who are far from home and as the result of an event have remained in the way and are in need of help. The application of the Arabic word /haqqah/ (due to) in the holy verse points to this fact that they have a share in man’s properties and if one pays something to them he has paid their own right to them and he has no reproach over them.
Some of the commentators have considered the addressee in this verse is only the Prophet of Islam (S) and they have rendered the Qur’anic phrase /ŏilqurba/ (kindred) into his relatives. A famous narration from Abu-Sa‘id-Khidri, as well as others, indicates that when the abovementioned verse was sent down the Prophet of Islam (S) bestowed Fadak on Fatimah (as) and delivered it to her.11 This very meaning has been narrated from Imam Baqir (as) and Imam Sadiq (as). The content of this tradition has been mentioned in a very detailed narration from Hadrat Imam Sadiq (as) containing the dialogue of the Lady of Islam, Fatimah Zahra (as) with Abu-Bakr.12
But some of other commentators have taken the addressee in this verse as general and believe that it includes the Prophet (S) and other people. According to this commentary all people are obliged not to neglect the right of their relatives. These two commentaries, of course, do not contradict each other and they can come along with together, in this way that the verse has a vast concept and the Prophet (S) and his relatives, specially his daughter, Fatimah Zahra (as), are its perfect denotation expansion.
This makes it clear that neither of the above interpretations contradicts with this noble Surah as a Meccan Surah, because the concept of the verse is a conclusive concept so that it must be fulfilled in both Mecca and Medina, and, according to this holy verse bestowing Fadak on Fatimah (as) is completely acceptable. The only thing which remains rather ambiguous here is the sentence:
“When the abovementioned verse was sent down…”
mentioned in the narration of Abu-Sa‘id Khidri the appearance of which indicates that the bestowal of Fadak was after the revelation of the verse. But if we take the Arabic term /lamma/ here in the sense of cause, not in the sense of a particular time, this problem will also be solved, and the concept of the narration will be that the Prophet (S) for the sake of this Divine commandment bestowed Fadak on Fatimah (as). In addition to that, some of the verses of the Qur’an have been sent down twice.
As for the matter that why among all the needy persons and possessors of right only these three groups have been mentioned the reason may be for the importance of them, because the right of relatives is more significant than any other right, and among the deprived and the poor, the needy and the wayfarers are in need more than all. Or it is for the sake of the point that Fakhr-i-Razi has said here. He says:
“The eight groups to whom alms must be given is in the case of that alms is obligatory, while the three groups who are mentioned in the verse must also be helped even at the time when giving alms is not obligatory, because some of the relatives are those to whom giving alimony is obligatory for a person but the needy is the deprived person that if he is not helped his life may be in danger.
Also a wayfarer may be in some circumstances that with the lack of succour he dies. The order of mentioning these three groups in the holy verse is also appropriate to the order of their importance.
However, for the encouragement of the benevolent, and also for stating the condition of the acceptance of expending, at the end of the verse the Qur’an says:
They will be prosperous both in this world and the next, since expending brings some wonderful bounties with it in this life and the next both, because it is one of the heaviest deeds in the Divine scale.
With regard to the fact that the Qur’anic phrase /wajh-ullah/ does not mean the bodily face of Allah, because He has not any bodily face, and it means the pure Essence of the Lord, this verse shows that the act of expending and paying the right of relatives, as well as that of the possessors of rights, is not enough.
It is important that this action must be accompanied with sincerity, pure intention, and free from any kind of hypocrisy, gaudiness, approach, scorn, and expectation of compensation.
This point is also necessary to be mentioned that, opposite to the statement of some commentators who have stipulated that expending for the sake of reaching Paradise is not the extension of /wajh-ullah/, all the deeds that one does and have a kind of communication with Allah whether they have been done for the pleasure of Allah, or reaching to His compensation, or being delivered from His punishment all are the extensions of /wajh-ullah/ though the high and complete stage of it is that the one does not consider in his view anything save servitude and obedience to Him.
Footnotes