The 365 · Verses · Day 270 · Justice
They handed over the meal they craved - to a stranger, an orphan, a prisoner.
وَيُطْعِمُونَ ٱلطَّعَامَ عَلَىٰ حُبِّهِۦ مِسْكِينًا وَيَتِيمًا وَأَسِيرًا
“They give food to the poor, the orphan, and the captive, though they love it themselves. (Quran 76:8)”
Svenska: de som ger den fattige, den faderlöse och fången att äta - oavsett deras eget behov och det pris de sätter på [födan] -
The story
Ibn Kathīr weighs a subtle question in this āyah: when it says they feed 'though they love it' (ʿalā ḥubbihi), whose love, and love of what? He reports that some read the pronoun as love of Allah, but the plainer reading - preferred by Mujāhid, Muqātil, and Ibn Jarīr - is that it refers to the food itself: they give it away while they still want it and need it. He ties this to the Prophet's ﷺ words in the Ṣaḥīḥ that the best charity is 'that which you give while you are healthy, covetous, hoping for wealth and fearing poverty.' Al-Saʿdī adds that these are people who genuinely love wealth and food, yet placed love of Allah above their own appetites, and who deliberately seek out the neediest and most deserving to receive it. Then comes the striking third recipient. On the poor and the orphan the mufassirūn are brief, but the captive (asīr) draws comment. Ibn Kathīr records that Saʿīd b. Jubayr, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḍaḥḥāk took him to be a Muslim prisoner, while Ibn ʿAbbās noted that when the āyah came down the captives in Muslim hands were idolaters - and points to Badr, where the Prophet ﷺ told his Companions to treat the prisoners well, so they gave them the better food and went without. ʿIkrimah said the captive is the bondsman; Mujāhid, the prisoner; Ibn Jarīr preferred the widest reading, covering Muslim and idolater alike. That is where justice lives in this verse: the claim of the hungry does not wait on whether they share your faith or even your side of a war. To give the enemy in your custody the portion you wanted for yourself is to honour a right that outranks appetite and enmity both.
In the language
In al-Zamakhsharī's Kashshāf the phrase ʿalā ḥubbihi is read as a circumstantial clause, a ḥāl describing the giver at the very moment of giving. The attached pronoun -hi, he says, points back to 'the food' (al-ṭaʿām): they feed others maʿa ishtihāʾihi wa-l-ḥājati ilayhi, 'along with craving it and needing it.' The preposition ʿalā ('upon', 'in spite of') does the quiet work here: it does not say they gave from surplus but that they gave standing on top of their own hunger. Al-Zamakhsharī sets it beside two sister verses that use the same construction - 'and gives wealth, in spite of love for it' (2:177) and 'you will not attain birr until you spend of what you love' (3:92) - so that the grammar itself insists true giving is measured by what it costs the giver. He also records a minority who referred the pronoun to Allah, reading it as 'out of love for Him' and citing al-Fuḍayl b. ʿIyāḍ; but the dominant reading keeps the ache of the sacrifice in view.
Why this verse
Charity that costs nothing proves nothing. The Qurʾān frames real giving as parting with something your own body still wants - and it extends the right to receive even to the captive in your power. Justice here is measured by what you surrender, not by what you can spare.
Bring it into today
Look at what you actually crave, then give from that. Not the wilted leftovers or the clothes you were going to donate anyway, but the meal you were looking forward to, the money you had earmarked for yourself. The āyah names three people with a claim on you: someone poor, someone parentless, and someone with the least social power of all - a prisoner. Ask who in your orbit fits that last category: the person no one is advocating for, perhaps even someone you have reason to resent. This week, pick one and give them the better portion. And follow the verse's inner voice - the givers say 'we feed you for the Face of Allah, we want no reward from you and no thanks.' Try giving where you cannot be thanked, publicly or privately, so the act stays between you and God. That is the discipline that turns a donation into justice.
A reflection to carry
The genius of this āyah is where it places the captive. A poor person and an orphan pull at the heart; a prisoner, often an enemy, does not. Yet Ibn Kathīr records the Companions at Badr feeding their captives the better food and going without. The verse refuses to let charity shrink to people we already like. It grounds giving not in warm feeling but in the recipient's right and the giver's fear of God, and strips out every earthly payoff: no reward, no thanks. What remains is a pure transaction with the Unseen - justice at its most demanding, honouring a claim where nothing comes back to you.
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.
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