The 365 · Verses · Day 268 · Justice
They asked whom to give to - and God ranked the answer for them.
يَسْـَٔلُونَكَ مَاذَا يُنفِقُونَ ۖ قُلْ مَآ أَنفَقْتُم مِّنْ خَيْرٍ فَلِلْوَٰلِدَيْنِ وَٱلْأَقْرَبِينَ وَٱلْيَتَـٰمَىٰ وَٱلْمَسَـٰكِينِ وَٱبْنِ ٱلسَّبِيلِ ۗ وَمَا تَفْعَلُوا۟ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بِهِۦ عَلِيمٌ
“They ask you, Prophet, what they should give. Say, 'Whatever you give should be for parents, close relatives, orphans, the needy, and travellers. God is well aware of whatever good you do.' (Quran 2:215)”
2:215 Read 2:215 with tafsir
Svenska: DE FRÅGAR dig vad de bör ge åt andra. Säg: "Det goda ni vill ge skall ni ge till era föräldrar och närmaste anhöriga och till de faderlösa och de behövande och till vandringsmannen. Gud har kännedom om det goda ni gör."
The story
Someone asked the Prophet ﷺ what they should give, and the answer redirected the question - from how much to whom. Ibn Kathīr reports that this āyah was revealed about voluntary charity, and that the reply lists the rightful recipients in order. As-Saʿdī reads the sequence as a ranking by right and need. Parents come first: he calls their claim the greatest, so that spending on them is among the highest forms of birr and neglecting them among the worst of disobedience - which is why maintaining them is an obligation on a child who can afford it. Then the near relatives, degree by degree, the nearer before the farther, according to closeness and need; giving to them, as-Saʿdī notes, is at once charity and the keeping of kinship ties. After them the orphans - the young who have no earner and so are presumed to be in need - then the needy whom hardship has pinned down, and finally the wayfarer, the traveler cut off in a land not his own, helped with enough to reach his destination. Ibn Kathīr echoes the same order with the Prophet's ﷺ words: 'Your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, then the nearest, then the nearest.' This is distributive justice in miniature - not a random scattering of wealth, but rights arranged by proximity and need, each given its proper place before the next.
In the language
A small word does heavy work here: khayr, 'good.' The question was 'what should we spend' (mādhā yunfiqūn), and the answer opens 'whatever you spend of khayr' - mā anfaqtum min khayr. As-Saʿdī notes that this covers wealth whether little or much; the āyah names money not as māl but as khayr, good, as though wealth is only truly itself when it becomes good done to others. Ibn Kathīr preserves a striking comment from Maymūn ibn Mihrān, who recited the āyah and said these named recipients - parents, kin, orphans, the needy, the traveler - are the true 'areas of spending'; Allah did not list drums or pipes or wall-hangings among them. The word khayr, in other words, both describes the wealth and quietly judges where it should go. And the āyah closes by returning to khayr once more - 'whatever good (khayr) you do, Allah knows it' - framing the whole act, from wealth to recipient to reward, under the single heading of good.
Why this verse
Justice is not just generosity - it is generosity in the right order. God answers 'whom?' before you can ask 'how much?', placing parents, kin, and the vulnerable in a sequence that honors both nearness and need.
Bring it into today
Map your own circle of giving against the order in this āyah. Start closest: are your parents cared for - not only emotionally but materially, if they need it? As-Saʿdī calls spending on them among the greatest acts of birr and a duty on a child who can afford it. Then move outward: relatives in need, the orphan with no one earning for them, the neighbor pinned down by hardship, the traveler or newcomer stranded far from home. This week, resist the pull to give only where it feels most visible or rewarding. Instead, ask who in your immediate circles has a rightful claim you have overlooked precisely because they are close. Set aside something - money, time, a concrete act of support - for the nearest unmet need first, then widen the circle. Let your generosity follow the map God drew, not just the impulse of the moment.
A reflection to carry
We tend to picture charity as a warm, spontaneous overflow - we give where our heart is moved. This āyah corrects that. When people asked what to give, the answer told them whom, and in what order: parents first, then kin by nearness, then the orphan, the needy, the stranded traveler. As-Saʿdī reads it as a hierarchy of rights, weighted by closeness and need. That order protects the people easiest to overlook because they are near - the parent who would never ask, the cousin quietly struggling. Does your giving follow this map, or drift toward whatever feels good in the moment?
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.
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