The 365 · Verses · Day 258 · Justice
Charity does two things at once: it cleanses the giver and it grows him.
خُذْ مِنْ أَمْوَٰلِهِمْ صَدَقَةً تُطَهِّرُهُمْ وَتُزَكِّيهِم بِهَا وَصَلِّ عَلَيْهِمْ ۖ إِنَّ صَلَوٰتَكَ سَكَنٌ لَّهُمْ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
“In order to cleanse and purify them, Prophet, accept a gift out of their property to make amends and pray for them: your prayer will be a comfort to them. God is all hearing, all knowing. (Quran 9:103)”
9:103 Read 9:103 with tafsir
Svenska: Tag då emot något av dem som offergåva [Muhammad]; så renar du dem [från synd] och hjälper dem att växa [i rättfärdighet]. Och be för dem - dina böner ger dem trygghet och tröst; Gud hör allt, vet allt.
The story
'Take a gift out of their property,' God tells His Prophet ﷺ - and al-Sa'dī identifies this as the obligatory zakāt. The command carries two verbs that describe what the charity does to the giver. Tutahhiruhum: it purifies them, al-Sa'dī says, from sins and from base traits like miserliness. And tuzakkīhim: it makes them grow - increasing their good character, their righteous deeds, their reward, and even their wealth. Then comes a tender instruction: 'and pray for them.' Al-Sa'dī reads salli 'alayhim as a supplication for the one who pays, and salātuka sakanun lahum - 'your prayer is a comfort to them' - as a tranquility that settles their hearts. Ibn Kathīr shows the Prophet ﷺ living this out: when charity was brought to him he would pray for its bringers, and to the family of Abu Awfā he said, 'O God, send blessings upon the family of Abu Awfā.' Ibn Kathīr also records how Abu Bakr, after the Prophet ﷺ, fought those who withheld zakāt from the caliph, insisting the obligation did not die with the Messenger ﷺ. Justice runs through the whole āyah: the wealth is taken as a due, not begged as a favour; it cleanses the one it is taken from; and the taking is wrapped in a prayer, so that even the collection of a right is done with gentleness and honour toward the giver.
In the language
The verb tuzakkīhim carries a doubleness that al-Sa'dī draws out. He glosses it not as cleansing but as growth: the charity makes the givers increase - in beautiful character, in righteous deeds, in reward both worldly and eternal, and even in their wealth. Set beside the preceding verb, tutahhiruhum ('it purifies them'), the pair captures the whole arc of the act: the charity first scrubs away what is base - al-Sa'dī names sins and vile character traits, of which miserliness is the paradigm - and then, in the emptied space, it grows something better. Purification removes; tazkiyah cultivates. This is why the same root gives us both zakāt (the alms) and tazkiyat al-nafs (the purifying and growing of the soul). Al-Sa'dī's reading means the giver is the first beneficiary: he hands over money and receives back a cleaner, larger self. The one who seems to lose is, by the grammar of the āyah, the one who gains.
Why this verse
The āyah gives two verbs, and al-Sa'dī keeps them distinct: the charity purifies the giver of sin and stinginess, then grows him in character, reward, and even wealth. The one who parts with the money is the āyah's true beneficiary.
Bring it into today
When you give, do not picture a subtraction. Al-Sa'dī reads this āyah's two verbs as a purifying and a growing: your zakāt scrubs miserliness out of the heart and then enlarges what remains - your character, your deeds, your reward. So give deliberately, and notice the inner loosening that follows. And borrow the āyah's second half for how you treat others: 'pray for them.' When someone gives - to you, to a cause, to the needy - meet their giving with a kind word and a genuine du'ā, the way the Prophet ﷺ prayed for those who brought their charity. Al-Sa'dī even notes it is good to say it aloud, so the giver hears it and is comforted. Justice is not only in collecting what is owed; it is in honouring the one who pays, so that giving a right never feels like losing something.
A reflection to carry
Read the two verbs slowly, the way al-Sa'dī does. Tutahhiruhum - it purifies them: the charity lifts sins and the grime of miserliness off the heart. Tuzakkīhim - it grows them: it raises better character, better deeds, more reward, even more wealth. God tells His Prophet ﷺ to take the charity, but everything that follows flows back toward the giver - he is purified, he is grown, and then he is prayed over. So the one who appears to hand something away is, in truth, being enriched, cleansed, and consoled. When you next pay what you owe, sit with the inversion: the money leaves your hand, but by the āyah's own accounting, you come away larger.
Sources: Ibn Kathīr, al-Saʿdī. 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 258
A verse, a healing, and a Sunnah, every morning.
Subscribe, free