Chapter 2: Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow), verses 215-216

Translation:

“They will ask you about alms-giving. Say: ‘Whatever you bestow in charity must go to your parents and to your kinsfolk, to orphans and to the helpless and to the wayfarer in need. God is aware of whatever good you do.’ Fighting is ordained for you, much as you dislike it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing although it is bad for you. God knows, but you do not know.” (2:215-216)

Commentary:

The general tendency is for people to spend their money on themselves and their families. But Islam urges them to spend for the cause of God, which is quite a different form of expenditure. While the former involves spending on oneself, the latter means spending on others. Another tendency is to exert one’s energy on attaining worldly position — something which meets the eye — while striving for everlasting reward, which we still cannot see, should be one’s most important goal. It is the very thing that man dislikes that is pleasing to God, and God’s good pleasure alone will benefit us in the next, infinitely vaster world. In God’s sight, evil lies in man doing what he himself wants, rather than what pleases his Creator. Evil may benefit a person in this temporal world; in the hereafter it will do him only harm.

The same is true of everything in life. People like to lead free and unrestricted lives, but it is better for them to adhere to God’s laws. They make friends with those who praise them. But they would be better advised to become endeared to their critics—those who are kind enough to point out their faults. In order to save face in the eyes of men, they defy truth, though they would do better to seek honour with God; and God only honours those who uphold the truth. Sacrifice and struggle are things that they shy away from; they prefer a religion which promises paradise without such total involvement. But it would be better for them when they adopt religion, to engage themselves in the sacrifice and struggle which it entails, for that will benefit them in the long run. The trouble is, they are deeply enmeshed in life and its issues, whereas they would be wiser paying attention to matters lying beyond death.

“God knows, but you do not know” means that God is above the feelings which only touch the surface, impulses aimed at that which meets the eye. Men tend to remain caught up in such superficial emotions. Consequently, they form prejudiced opinions, they cannot think objectively. God’s decision, bears the stamp of reality. Unaffected by unrelated issues, it is true and infallible. Men, for their part, are fallible creatures. Spurred on by base emotions, they tend to arrive at biased, unjust and unrealistic conclusions. It is better then to accept what God tells us, and to renounce our personal views.  

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