The 365 · Verses · Day 246 · Justice
One coin, planted rightly, can return seven hundred - such is God's math.
مَّثَلُ ٱلَّذِينَ يُنفِقُونَ أَمْوَٰلَهُمْ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ كَمَثَلِ حَبَّةٍ أَنۢبَتَتْ سَبْعَ سَنَابِلَ فِى كُلِّ سُنۢبُلَةٍ مِّا۟ئَةُ حَبَّةٍ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ يُضَـٰعِفُ لِمَن يَشَآءُ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ وَٰسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ
“Those who spend their wealth in God's cause are like grains of corn that produce seven ears, each bearing a hundred grains. God gives multiple increase to whoever He wishes: He is limitless and all knowing. (Quran 2:261)”
2:261 Read 2:261 with tafsir
Svenska: DE SOM ger av vad de äger för Guds sak kan liknas vid sädeskorn som ger sju ax och vart ax bär hundra korn. Gud mångdubblar avkastningen för den Han vill; Gud når överallt och Han vet allt.
The story
Ibn Kathīr explains that this āyah is a parable God coined for how He multiplies the reward of those who spend in His cause seeking His pleasure - ten times over, up to seven hundred, and beyond. He records that Saʿīd ibn Jubayr read spending in God's cause as spending in His obedience, while Makhūl specified equipping the struggle in His path - horses, weapons, and the like. Ibn Kathīr makes a striking observation: the image of a seed bursting into seven hundred grains lands on the heart with a force the bare number seven hundred never could. He likens it to how God grows a plant for whoever sows it in good soil, and cites the Prophet ﷺ telling a man who gave a bridled camel in charity that he would come on the Day of Resurrection with seven hundred bridled camels. As-Saadi adds that the parable makes the multiplication visible: the believer who once watched a single grain fill a field with his eyes now watches this increase with the eye of faith, so the testimony of sight reinforces the testimony of belief, and the soul gives willingly. Both note that the closing phrase, God multiplies for whom He wills, ties the increase to the spender's sincerity, and As-Saadi holds it may even exceed sevenfold hundreds, reward without measure. This is divine justice at its most generous - a recompense that does not merely match the deed but magnifies it beyond counting.
In the language
Al-Zamakhsharī (al-Kashshāf) notes that the verse's opening compresses an omitted word. Literally it reads: the likeness of those who spend is like a grain - but a person is not literally like a grain. He supplies the missing term: the likeness of their spending is like a grain, or the likeness of them is like one who sows a grain. This ellipsis is not carelessness; it is the economy of parable, trusting the listener to complete the comparison. He makes a second observation on the verb anbatat (it grew seven ears). Strictly, the One who causes growth is God, not the seed. But because the grain is the visible cause set into the soil, the act of growing is attributed to it - just as we say the earth or the water grew the crop. The grammar quietly mirrors the theology: the servant plants and spends, yet the true increase comes from God.
Why this verse
God's justice is not cold arithmetic that returns exactly what you put in. It answers a single sincere act with a harvest, tying the size of the return to the honesty of the heart behind it - so generosity is never a loss.
Bring it into today
Reframe every act of giving as planting, not spending. When you part with money, time, or effort in God's cause, you are not subtracting from a finite pile - you are sowing a seed into soil that returns it manifold. Practically, give even when the amount feels small; the parable dignifies the single grain, not only the sackful. Guard the sincerity that the verse ties the multiplication to: give for God's approval, not for the glance of onlookers, because the harvest tracks the intention. And widen where you plant - a fair wage, a supported orphan, a funded good work - trusting that the God who grows crops from buried seeds is growing something from what you quietly send ahead.
A reflection to carry
We tend to feel giving as loss - the number in the account drops, and something in us flinches. This āyah reaches into that flinch. As-Saadi says the parable makes multiplication visible: the believer who watched one seed fill a field with his eyes now watches the same increase with the eye of faith. The math of the world is subtraction; the math of God, for what is given sincerely in His cause, is a harvest. And the increase is for whom He wills - tracking the honesty of the heart, not the size of the gift. So the invitation is not to give recklessly but to give truly. Plant the small grain today, and let the One who grows crops from buried seeds handle the yield.
Sources: Ibn Kathīr, al-Saʿdī, al-Zamakhsharī (al-Kashshāf). The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
Also on Day 246
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