Saba’

لِيَجْزِيَ الَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ اُوْلَئِكَ لَهُم مَّغْفِرَةٌ وَرِزْقٌ كَرِيمٌ

4. “That He may reward those who believe and do righteous deeds, for such is forgiveness and a bountiful provision.”

A bountiful provision is a provision which is given vastly, bountifully, and honourably not with reproach and pity. This holy verse states the purpose of the establishment of the Hereafter, or in other words, it explains the reason of the necessity of such a world after this present world for its rejecters. It says:

If the righteous believers do not get their reward, is the principle of justice, which is the most fundamental principle of the creation, not suspended? Can the Divine Justice have any meaning without it? But we see many of such people in this world who never receive the compensation of their good deeds. Therefore, there must be another world wherein this principle can be performed. The word ‘forgiveness’ has been mentioned before the concept of ‘bountiful provision’, and it may be for the sake that the most anxiety of the believers is for the faults that they probably have had, therefore, before anything else by means of the statement of forgiveness they are given peace of mind.

Moreover, they are not eligible of ‘bountiful sustenance’ and ‘the noble rank’ unless they are cleaned with forgiveness. ‘A bountiful provision’ is in the sense of any worthy sustenance, and the vastness of its concept is so much that it envelops all the Divine merits, even the bounties which no eye has ever seen and no ear has ever heard of and nobody has thought of. In other words, Paradise, with all its spiritual and material bounties, is found in this word.

Some commentators have rendered this Qur’anic word, /karim/, as two good and painless things, but it seems that its meaning is vaster than that.⁵

Footnotes

1. 5. ’Alusi, in Rauh-ul-Ma‘ali, following the verse