Al-Maa’oon

Soorah 107:1-7

Name and Background

Teachings and Commentary

Ayub A. Hamid

 

Name and Background

The last word of the Soorah has been used as the unique identifier of this small Soorah.

The Holy Ka‘bah, the subject matter of the previous two Soowar, was established as a centre of Islam, the two most important pillars of which are Salaah and Zakaah. Salaah is the Islamic way of worshipping Allaah and Zakaah is an effective way of collectively taking care of the poor and deprived. Prophet Ibraaheem ‘alayhissalaam settled his family in Makkah and dedicated his son Ismaa‘eel for the service of the House and for establishing the Deen of Allaah around these two pillars. He fulfilled his responsibility and was described in the Qur-aan as: 

“He used to enjoin Salaah and Zakaah upon his family.” (Maryam 19:55)

Then gradually, his progeny, the Arabs, abandoned most of the Islamic practices and became negligent in Salaah and Zakaah.  Although the respect of the Holy Ka‘bah remained and the rituals of pilgrims were fulfilled, these two pillars were totally neglected. Instead of taking care of the poor and weak, many people used to exploit them, rebuke them and drive them away harshly. Similarly Salaah was devoid of humble devotion to Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala and His glorification and had been reduced to whistling and clapping as mentioned in Al-Anfaal,

“Their worship at the House is merely whistling and clapping.” (8:35)

One can visualize this better if one thinks of the way Salaah of Jesus ‘alayhissalaam has now been reduced by Christians to simply music and songs in modern churches. Some churches have even made it an activity of laughter and amusement.

Furthermore, even this kind of useless ritual was not performed sincerely for Allaah but only to give an impression of one’s religiosity.

This Soorah points out this terrible state of religious affairs of the caretakers of the House, the Quraish of Makkah, and exposes the core reason behind this façade of their religiosity.

A person who believes in the Hereafter seeks the pleasure of Allaah and fears the accountability on the Day of Judgment. This focus on seeking His pleasure and fear of accountability makes a person kind, generous, helpful and sharing towards those in need. Such a person is also eager and mindful of worshipping Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala properly with devotion and humility.  Only a person who does not believe in the accountability and recompense in the Hereafter becomes rude to an orphan or careless about the welfare of the poor. Such people may appear to be religious because they perform certain rituals with much fanfare to show off and be noticed. But in reality they really do not believe, and their disbelief is shown by their miserly, stingy and selfish behaviour so much so that they find it hard even to share small trivial things with others.  

Thus the Soorah exposes the real factor behind the Makkan leaders’ miserly, unkind behaviour and their soulless, outwardly rituals of worship – they do not believe in the Hereafter. That is why all initial Soowar revealed in Makkah focussed on the various aspects of the belief in the Hereafter.

Some people assume that the Salaah talked about here is the Salaah of Muslims. And because the Soorah mentions about those who make show of their Salaah, they assume that this Soorah or the last three verses of this Soorah must have been revealed in Madeenah where such hypocrites were found among the Muslims. However, with the correct perspective of the Salaah offered by the Makkans, as explained above, any doubts about this Soorah being a Makkan Soorah should be cleared. 

Teachings

In the name of Allaah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

1 Did you see the one who denies Recompense in the Hereafter? 2 That is the person who pushes the orphan away 3 and does not encourage giving of poor’s food. 4 So woe to the worshippers 5 who are negligent about their worship, 6 who show off, 7 yet refuse even small kindnesses! 

Commentary

The Soorah starts with drawing the reader’s / listener’s attention to reflect upon a certain behaviour – the behaviour of a person who denies the Deen. The word Deen has two meanings:

§         The paradigm according to which people make their decisions in life; Islam is the Deen of Muslims in that sense.

§         The recompense (reward or punishment) given to people as a result of their accountability on the Day of Judgement.

As in Soorah Faatiĥah, Deen here refers to the recompense to be given in the Hereafter. 

This type of behaviour was clearly found among the arch enemies of Islam and Muslims. For example, according to the Tafseer by Ameen Ahsan Islaahi, Aboo Lahab was in charge of Holy Ka‘bah’s food fund that was established to feed the pilgrims, travellers, orphans and needy, but he had misappropriated it for his personal benefit as his own wealth, depriving those who deserved help. He had become quite a wealthy man through ill gains. At the same time, he was extremely stingy and hated to spend even a penny for public welfare. Despite being a wealthy man, he never even supported his own orphaned-nephew, the Prophet sall Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, who was raised by his other uncle, Aboo Ŧaalib who was financially poor. He was harsh in rebuking the orphans away instead of helping them.

Similar things have been reported about Aboo Jahl from Al-Maawardi’s book, “Signs of the Prophethood” that he was the guardian of an orphan, but was not spending the orphan’s share of inheritance on the orphan’s basic needs. One day the orphan came to Aboo Jahl to seek help from the inheritance belonging to him, and he was in such a destitute condition that he did not even have clothes on his body. Aboo Jahl ignored him completely until the poor child walked away disappointed and helpless. Some spectators asked the orphan boy to complain about it to the Prophet. They thought it would be funny to see how the Prophet sall Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, reacted to the boy’s complaint, knowing that Aboo Jahl was the Prophet’s sworn enemy. Not knowing the circumstances, the boy innocently went to the Prophet sall Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and complained. When the Prophet heard the matter, without hesitating even for a moment, he took the boy with him, went to Aboo Jahl and demanded that he gave the boy his due. The spectators were surprised that Aboo Jahl was so much under the awe of the Prophet sall Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, that he immediately complied and paid the boy.

Instead of saying “encourage feeding the poor”, the verse uses the style that connotes “encourage giving of poor’s food”. The latter style has been used to impress upon people that helping poor people fill their stomach is not a favour that rich people do to the poor. Rather, poor people have the right to have their food as a compulsory item in the budgets of the well to do people. As the Qur-aan says in Soorah Al-M‘aarij:

“In their wealth there is a designated / known right, for the beggars and the deprived”. (70:24-25)

“Small kindnesses” refer to giving to friends, neighbours or needy people little things of daily use or lending some tools, implements or utensils for temporary use.

The most important point that should be noted from the last three verses of the Soorah is the relationship between the acts of worship and the goodness of character. These verses clearly indicate that if a person is not kind, sharing and caring, his acts of worship are neither sincere nor proper. Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala’s sincere worship executed properly will result in a personality that cares for Allaah’s creations. If a person is seen to be practising rituals of worship regularly but lacks kindness and care for people, he is either merely completing the mechanics of the worship rather than worshipping properly, or he just shows off to be seen as a worshipper, while in fact he is not.