[Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow) - سورة البقرة C.2-V.3]

"Who believe in the unseen, establish prayer, and spend out of what We have provided for them,"

الَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْغَيْبِ وَيُقِيمُونَ الصَّلَاةَ وَمِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ

[Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow) - سورة البقرة C.2-V.3]

THE INTERPRETATION OF ALLADHINA YUMINUNA:

Belief (iman) for the Arabs is attesting to the truth (tasdiq) of something : someone who verbally attests to the truth of something is called a believer in it, and someone who attests to the truth of what he says by what he does is called a believer. Hence the words of Allah in which Jacob's sons fabricate the story of Joseph's disappearance before their father: 'You would never believe us, even if we spoke the truth.', i.e., you would never attest to the truth of what we said. Fear of Allah may also come into the meaning of ‘belief .... 'Belief' is a word which combines the acknowledgement of Allah, His Book, and His Messenger, with the attestation of this acknowledgement by action.

Since this is the case, the best interpretation of this verse, the closest resemblance to the attribute of these people, is that they are characterized by their attestation of the Unseen through word, faith, and deed, for Allah has not restricted the description of them to one meaning of belief rather than another, but has made their description by this term general, without specifying one of its meanings extracted from their description through either a report or some evidence of the intellect.

THE INTERPRETATION OF BI-'L-GHAIB:

The Unseen is what is concealed from the servants of the affair of the Garden and the affair of the Fire, and what Allah has mentioned in the Qur'an. They-i.e., the believers among the Arabs-did not attest to its truth on the basis of any scripture apart from the Qur'an or of any other knowledge they had.

THE INTERPRETATION OF WA-YUQiMUNA:

In the speech of the Arabs, salat means a call (du'a',= to call on, to supplicate). The prescribed prayer is, in my opinion, called the salat because the one who prays directs his attention to seeking success in his desire for Alla's reward through his actions, as well as success in his asking his Lord for his needs, just as one who supplicates directs his attention, through his supplication to his lord, to seeking success for his needs and requests.

THE INTERPRETATION OF WA-MIM-MA RAZAQNA-HUM YUNFIQUNA:

TABARi’S OPINION: The best interpretation of the verse, the most appropriate to the description of these people, is that they disbursed all that they had to from their possessions, whether it was zakat or necessary expenditure for any relatives, dependents, or others, for whom they were obliged to lay out expenditure for drawing near to Allah, for securing property, or whatever. This is because Allah generalized His description of them when He described them as expending what He has provided for them, and extolled them for this quality of theirs. Since He did not particularize praise of them or description of them by referring to one kind of praiseworthy expenditure to the exclusion of some other kind, either by direct communication or otherwise, it is clear that they were described with all the meanings of praiseworthy expenditure of the good things goods and property-which their Lord provided for them, that is, what He made lawful with which nothing unlawful has been mixed.

All bounties proceed from Allah. They may be physical gifts, e.g. food, clothing, houses, gardens, wealth, etc. or intangible gifts, e.g., influence, power, birth and the opportunities flowing from it, health, talents, etc. or spiritual gifts, e.g., insight into good and evil, understanding of men, the capacity for love, etc. We are to use all in humility and moderation. But we are also to give out of every one of them something that contributes to the well-being of others. We are to be neither ascetics nor luxurious sybarites, neither selfish misers nor thoughtless prodigals.