Friday Nasiha

Al-Mutaffifeen \r\n (The Misers)
\r\n Chapter 83: Verses 4-6

The \r\n Miser
\r\n \"Do such men not think that they will \r\n be raised to life on a great day, the day when all mankind shall stand \r\n before the Lord of all creation?\"

The fact that the behaviour of the defrauders is tackled in this manner \r\n in a Makkan revelation is very interesting. Makkan surahs generally concentrate \r\n on the fundamentals, such as the assertion of the unity of Allah, the \r\n supremacy of His will and His dominion over the universe and over mankind, \r\n and the assertion of the truth of revelation and prophethood, the truth \r\n of the Day of Judgement, the reckoning and the reward. The tackling of \r\n a specific issue of morality, such as the stinting of weights and measures, \r\n or business dealings in general, is a later concern; it is characteristic \r\n of Medinan revelations, which regulate the life of the community in an \r\n Islamic state. The fact that this Makkan surah makes the issue of stinting \r\n its focal point therefore deserves to be considered carefully.

The text suggests that the defrauders against whom war was declared belonged \r\n to the nobility and wielded much power and influence which enabled them \r\n to force others to succumb to their wishes. The Arabic expression connotes \r\n that for some unspecified reason they were able to impose their will and \r\n exact in full. The meaning implied is not that they exacted their full \r\n due; for this would not justify the declaration of war against them. What \r\n is meant is that they obtained by sheer force what they had no right to \r\n demand. But when it was their turn to weigh or measure for others, they \r\n exercised their power by giving them less than their due.

Indeed this warning, coming so early in the Makkan period, gives an idea \r\n of the nature of the religion of Islam. It points out that Islam embraces \r\n all sides of life and aims to establish a firm moral code which accords \r\n with the basic principles of the Divine teachings. It declared war against \r\n the misers and threatened them with woe and destruction at the time when \r\n they were the powerful rulers of Makka. It declared its uncompromising \r\n stand against the injustice suffered by the masses whom it has never sought \r\n to lull into a state of lethargy and apathy. This gives us an insight \r\n into the real motives behind the stubborn opposition to Islam by the masters \r\n of Makka. They were undoubtedly keenly aware that what Muhammad (peace \r\n be on him) was calling for was not merely a matter of personal conviction \r\n which demanded no more than a verbal assertion of the unity of Allah and \r\n the prophethood of Muhammad, and a form of prayers addressed to Allah \r\n and not to idols. They realised that the new faith would establish a way \r\n of life which would cause the very basis of their positions and interests \r\n to crumble. They were fully aware that the new religion, by its very nature, \r\n did not admit any partnership or compromise with any worldly concepts, \r\n alien to its Divine basis, and that it posed a mighty threat to all the \r\n base earthly values of Ignorance. This is why they launched their offensive, \r\n which continued in full force both before and after the Muslim emigration. \r\n It was an offensive launched to defend their way of life in its entirety, \r\n not only a set of concepts which have no effect beyond individual acceptance \r\n and personal conviction.

Those who attempt in any age or land to prevent it from organising and \r\n ruling human life also realise these essential facts. They know very well \r\n that the pure and straightforward Islamic way of life endangers their \r\n unjust order, interests, hollow structure and deviant practices. Indeed \r\n the tyrannical misers (whatever form their stinting takes and wherever \r\n it is, in money and finance, or in the area of rights and duties) are \r\n those who fear most the ascendancy of Islam and the implementation of \r\n its just methods.

Their attitude is singularly strange. The mere idea of being raised to \r\n life again on that great day, when all mankind shall stand as ordinary \r\n individuals in front of the Lord of the Universe, awaiting His just judgement, \r\n without support from any quarter, should be enough to make them change \r\n course. But they persist, as if the thought of being raised to life after \r\n death has never crossed their minds.