The 365 · Verses · Day 276 · Justice
Your real wealth is not what you keep - it is what you send ahead.
۞ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ يَعْلَمُ أَنَّكَ تَقُومُ أَدْنَىٰ مِن ثُلُثَىِ ٱلَّيْلِ وَنِصْفَهُۥ وَثُلُثَهُۥ وَطَآئِفَةٌ مِّنَ ٱلَّذِينَ مَعَكَ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ يُقَدِّرُ ٱلَّيْلَ وَٱلنَّهَارَ ۚ عَلِمَ أَن لَّن تُحْصُوهُ فَتَابَ عَلَيْكُمْ ۖ فَٱقْرَءُوا۟ مَا تَيَسَّرَ مِنَ ٱلْقُرْءَانِ ۚ عَلِمَ أَن سَيَكُونُ مِنكُم مَّرْضَىٰ ۙ وَءَاخَرُونَ يَضْرِبُونَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ يَبْتَغُونَ مِن فَضْلِ ٱللَّهِ ۙ وَءَاخَرُونَ يُقَـٰتِلُونَ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ۖ فَٱقْرَءُوا۟ مَا تَيَسَّرَ مِنْهُ ۚ وَأَقِيمُوا۟ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَءَاتُوا۟ ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ وَأَقْرِضُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ قَرْضًا حَسَنًا ۚ وَمَا تُقَدِّمُوا۟ لِأَنفُسِكُم مِّنْ خَيْرٍ تَجِدُوهُ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ هُوَ خَيْرًا وَأَعْظَمَ أَجْرًا ۚ وَٱسْتَغْفِرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ ۖ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌۢ
“Recite as much as is easy for you, keep up the prayer, pay the prescribed alms, and make God a good loan. Whatever good you store up for yourselves will be improved and increased for you. Ask God for His forgiveness, He is most forgiving, most merciful. (Quran 73:20, the closing)”
73:20 Read 73:20 with tafsir
Svenska: DIN HERRE vet att du [Muhammad] vakar [i bön] nästan två tredjedelar av natten eller halva natten eller en tredjedel av den, tillsammans med några av dina följeslagare. Och Gud, som fastställer nattens och dagens längd, vet att ni inte håller räkning på [era vakor] och Han vänder Sig till er [och lättar i Sin barmhärtighet era bördor]. Läs således ur Koranen vad ni med lätthet kan läsa. [Gud] vet att det kommer att finnas sjuka bland er och andra som färdas långt bort för att söka [den utkomst som] Han i Sin godhet [beviljar dem], och andra som kämpar för Guds sak. Läs alltså vad ni med lätthet kan läsa och förrätta bönen och hjälp de behövande och ge Gud ett lån av goda gärningar - varje god handling som ni sänder framför er [till Domen] skall ni återfinna hos Gud, förskönad och [följd av] en rikare belöning. Och be om Guds förlåtelse för era synder - Gud är ständigt förlåtande, barmhärtig!
The story
Sūrat al-Muzzammil opens with the Prophet ﷺ standing much of the night in prayer, and closes by lifting that burden. Ibn Kathīr explains that this final āyah abrogated the obligation of the long night vigil: God knew that among the believers would be the sick, those travelling the earth 'seeking God's bounty' in trade, and those fighting in His path - so He commanded only what is easy. Al-Sa'dī marvels at the mercy in this: the law bends to the states of God's servants, sparing them hardship. But having eased one duty, the āyah anchors two that do not bend - establishing the prayer and paying zakāh - and adds a third invitation: 'lend to God a goodly loan.' Ibn Kathīr reads this as charity, for which God returns the best and most multiplied reward. Then comes the promise: 'Whatever good you send ahead for yourselves, you will find it with God, better and greater in reward.' Al-Sa'dī measures the exchange - a single good deed repaid tenfold, up to seven hundred times, and more; an atom's weight of good sent from this world meets mountains of reward in the next, because the good you do here is the very seed of the good that waits there. Ibn Kathīr seals it with the ḥadīth: a person's real wealth is only what he sent forward, while what he leaves behind belongs to his heirs. And the āyah ends not in triumph but in humility - 'seek God's forgiveness' - because, al-Sa'dī notes, no servant is free of shortfall, and even our best deeds need mending. Here justice is an economy: nothing given is lost, nothing hoarded is truly kept, and every good is returned to its owner, improved.
In the language
Al-Zamakhsharī notes a fine choice of word early in the āyah: God says the Prophet ﷺ rises 'adnā' - literally 'nearer to' - two-thirds of the night. In al-Kashshāf he explains that adnā, whose root sense is nearness, is borrowed here to mean 'less than,' because when the gap between two things shrinks, the space between them grows small; nearness and fewness share a logic. He marks a second point in 'wa-Allāhu yuqaddiru al-layla wa-l-nahār,' 'and God measures the night and the day.' By placing the divine name first, as subject, the structure carries exclusivity: it is God alone who can reckon the exact hours, and precisely because you cannot, He has lightened the reckoning for you. The grammar of the verse enacts its mercy - the impossibility of a perfect human count becomes the ground of a merciful divine allowance.
Why this verse
We instinctively call 'mine' what we hold. This āyah reverses the ledger: what you clutch will pass to your heirs, and only what you spent for God is permanently yours. The night vigil may be eased, but the deeper duty - to send good ahead - is not.
Bring it into today
Treat this week's giving as a transfer into an account you will actually keep. Before you spend on what depreciates, move something into what appreciates: a set amount of charity, timed and deliberate, not the loose change of your intentions. The āyah pairs this with prayer, so tie the two together - let a fixed ṣadaqah ride alongside your ṣalāh, the way zakāh rides beside it here. When a good deed feels small, remember al-Sa'dī's arithmetic: it is a seed, returned tenfold and far beyond. And when you have given and prayed, do the surprising last thing the āyah commands - ask forgiveness, because even your best act came with shortfall. That closing istighfār keeps generosity from curdling into pride, and lets you invest without ever thinking you have paid God back.
A reflection to carry
There is a quiet reversal here. The wealth we defend as ours is, the ḥadīth says, only our heirs' in waiting; what becomes permanently ours is what we let go for God. Al-Sa'dī frames the good deed as a seed - what looks like a small loss here is planted, multiplied, and harvested there, returned 'better and greater.' That is a justice most ledgers miss: nothing sincerely given is subtracted, only relocated where neither moth nor heir can reach it. And notice where the āyah leaves us - not congratulating the giver but sending him to ask forgiveness, since even the good we send ahead is imperfect, and it is God's mercy, not our accounting, that improves it on arrival.
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 276
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