al-Ḥashr 59:7

Mā afāʾallāhu ʿalā rasūlihī min ahli'l-qurā fa-lillāhi wa li'l-rasūli wa li-dhi'l-qurbā wa'l-yatāmā wa'l-masākīni wa'bni'l-sabīl, kay lā yakūna dūlatan bayna'l-aghniyāʾi minkum, wa mā ātākumu'l-rasūlu fa-khudhūhu wa mā nahākum ʿanhu fa'ntahū, wa'ttaqullāh, innallāha shadīdu'l-ʿiqāb

"The fayʾ that God gave His Messenger from the people of the settlements belongs to God, to the Messenger, to the near of kin, to the orphans, to the poor and to the wayfarer — so that it may not be a wealth circulating only among the rich among you. Whatever the Messenger has given you, take it; whatever he has forbidden you, give it up. Fear God; God is severe in requital."

This verse contains one of the clearest statements of principle in the Qurʾān on economic matters. And that the principle should be written out openly — given in the form of a clause of justification — is a rare thing.

Let us look first at the list of the division, then at the ground.

A note on word order: the letter lām is repeated in the first three items (lillāhi, li'l-rasūli, li-dhi'l-qurbā) and is not repeated in the last three — all of them come under a single conjunction. In the classical commentaries differences of this kind are recorded; it is said that the first three are emphasised separately and the last three taken as one cluster.

What does "belonging to God" mean? The classical explanation is this: it is an expression of blessing and of framing placed at the head of the division — it states who the real owner of the property is; it is not a separate share. For God has no need of property. Some exegetes interpret it of the Kaʿba and of general public expenditure. This is a discussion in fiqh; here I content myself with transmitting it.

And four of the list are directly people in need: the near of kin, the orphans, the poor, the wayfarers.

When this list is set beside the list in al-Baqara 2/177, something interesting appears.

al-Baqara 2/177 — those given to in the definition of personal goodness: relatives, orphans, the poor, the wayfarer, those who ask, the freeing of slaves.

al-Ḥashr 59/7 — those given to in the division of public revenue: the near of kin, orphans, the poor, the wayfarer.

Four items are exactly the same: relative, orphan, poor, wayfarer.

This overlap is noteworthy. For the two verses regulate completely different fields: the one the good a person does out of his own property, the other the division of a community's common revenue.

And the same names come out.

What this says is this: in the Qurʾān public finance and personal morality are bound to the same principle. The place where the revenue of the state is to go and the place where the money out of a person's pocket is to go share the same list.

This is a view that does not separate the two fields from one another. Personal generosity does not take the place of public regulation; nor does public regulation lift personal responsibility. The two look in the same direction.

And there is a third list: the places where the zakāt is to be spent (al-Tawba 9/60) — there too the poor, the destitute, the wayfarers and slaves are enumerated. Three lists, three different mechanisms, largely the same recipients.

The centre of the verse is here.

كَىْ لَا — a particle of purpose: "so that … may not be". That is, the division above is given together with a ground.

It needs to be stressed how out of the ordinary this is: a financial regulation is laid down and why it is laid down is written openly. Places where the ground of a ruling is given as clearly as this are few in the Qurʾān.

The open writing of the ground produces a consequence: the spirit of the ruling becomes knowable. If you know why a rule was laid down, you also know what is to be done in similar situations that fall outside the scope of that rule.

Root: د-و-ل. The original sense of the root is a thing's passing from hand to hand, its coming round by turns, the changing of the turn.

Dāla yadūlu: it came round, the turn changed. Mudāwala: to pass a thing round from hand to hand.

Its clearest use in the Qurʾān is in the context of Uḥud:

"Those days We turn about among people" — وَتِلْكَ ٱلْأَيَّامُ نُدَاوِلُهَا بَيْنَ ٱلنَّاسِ (Āl ʿImrān 3/140)

There "the days" — that is, superiority and the upper hand — turn among people. The same root, the same idea: the changing of the turn.

دُولَة and دَوْلَة. A distinction is transmitted among the classical lexicographers: dūla, with ḍamma, is used for property and wealth; dawla, with fatḥa, for war and rule. Some lexicographers count the two synonymous. I adopt no definite preference; but that both are from the same root means that they preserve a common idea.

And the word we use in Turkish today, devlet (state), is from this root.

This is worth dwelling on. Within the word there is an idea of taking turns: rule changes hands, the turn comes round. A word that names a political structure carries in its origin not "permanence" but, exactly the opposite, "changing hands".

Another Turkish word from the same root: not devir but tedavül — the circulation of money. And this sits directly on the subject of the verse: tadāwul is the changing of hands of property.

Here careful reading is needed, because the verse is very easily misunderstood.

The verse does not forbid wealth. There is nothing in the sentence saying "do not be rich" or "wealth is bad".

Nor does the verse forbid the circulation of property. On the contrary: dūla already means circulation, and circulation itself is natural. Property's changing hands is an economy's working.

What is forbidden is the scope of the circulation: بَيْنَ ٱلْأَغْنِيَآءِ — "among the rich".

That is, the property circulates, but it circulates within a closed ring. The one who takes in and the one who pays out are in the same set. Nobody outside can enter that circulation.

The verse takes as its target not the existence of wealth but the circulation of wealth forming a closed circle.

This distinction takes the verse out of being a text of hostility to wealth and makes it say something far sharper: the health of an order is measured not by how much wealth is produced but by among whom the wealth circulates.

When we read this verse together with two sūras concerning property that were treated earlier, a table appears.

al-Humaza 104/2 — "who gathers wealth and counts it over and over" (جَمَعَ مَالًا وَعَدَّدَهُۥ).

The finding set up there was this: the acts not mentioned are at least as important as those mentioned. The verse does not say "he spent, he used, he gave, he set it to work". Property does not appear at all as an economic instrument; it merely accumulates and is counted. That is, the property stands still. There is no circulation.

al-Ḥashr 59/7 — the property circulates, but in a narrow circle.

Two different faults:

The Qurʾān records both. The one diagnoses the relation an individual sets up with property, the other the relation a society sets up with wealth. And the two are not independent: when individual hoarding becomes widespread, the social result is a closed circulation.

al-Fajr 89/19-20 — "You devour the inheritance, gulping it down without distinguishing; and you love wealth with a heaped-up love."

The finding set up there was this: the verse does not say "wealth", it says "the inheritance" — that is, property for which no labour has been given. And the centre of the root lamm is "not distinguishing": not telling apart what is one's due from what is not.

Inheritance, if one thinks about it, is a particular form of dūla: the circulation of property within the same lineage. It passes from one generation to another, but it does not go outside the ring. There is a closeness between al-Fajr's choosing inheritance and al-Ḥashr's choosing "circulating among the rich".

I record this as my own reading; the two verses regulate different things and do not give exactly the same ruling. But the point to which both draw attention is a common one: how the property in one's hand came, and where it goes.

Here one must not force things. The verse does not set up an economic theory, does not give a rate of taxation, does not describe a system.

What it does is to lay down a measure: the rightness of a financial regulation can be tested by looking at among whom the wealth circulates.

This measure has counterparts in modern economics — the measurement of the distribution of wealth, the velocity of circulation, the accessibility of resources are studied separately. But to read these back into the verse would be forcing. What the verse gives is not an instrument of measurement but a direction.

And a record, per the method (Method): the concrete economic models drawn from this verse — which system, which rate, which regulation — are not the verse itself. The verse lays down a principle; how the principle is to be applied is the field of ijtihād, and it has been applied in different forms in history. I do not take sides in current political debates.

This sentence has been much discussed in the tradition of legal theory. First its place needs to be looked at.

Context: the sentence stands in the middle of a division of fayʾ. Immediately before it is the list of the division, immediately after it the command to fear God.

For this reason the first meaning of the sentence is contextual: "Take what the Messenger has given you in the division, and do not set your eye on what he has not given." That is, the sentence closes off the possibility of objecting to the decision of the division.

The second meaning comes from the generality of the wording. The sentence is built on a general pattern: mā … fa-khudhūhu. And in the tradition of legal theory this verse is counted one of the fundamental proofs of the binding force of the sunna.

Both are readings with a ground in the text, and they do not exclude one another: the sentence was said in a particular situation, but it was built on a general pattern. This is a structure often seen in the Qurʾān — the same principle was treated in Sūrat al-Māʿūn as well.

I adopt no preference here. But this much needs to be said: the second reading does not tear the sentence away from its context; it says that the narrowness of the context does not narrow the wording.

The sentence is built as two pairs, and the second pair differs from the first:

On the positive side, two different verbs: the giver gives, the taker takes. Two separate movements.

On the negative side, the same root: nahā (he forbade) and intahā (he stopped himself, he gave up). Intihāʾ is the iftiʿāl form of nahy — that is, "to forbid oneself".

What this tells is a fine thing: the nahy that comes from outside becomes intihāʾ inside. The prohibition ceases to be a rule that is obeyed and turns into the person's stopping himself. And the language shows this by choosing the two verbs from the same root.

On the positive side there is no such transformation, because what is given already comes from outside and is taken from outside. On the negative side the business is finished inside.

The verse ends with the same verse-ending as the fourth verse: shadīdu'l-ʿiqāb.

In the fourth verse this expression was used of those standing in the opposing rank. Here it is directed at the believers — and the subject is the division of property.

This repetition says something: the matter of the division is not regarded as a subject to be taken lightly. A warning of the same weight is given both to those standing in the opposing rank and to the believers who are dividing property.