This makes it clear that anyone who has contributed to your upbringing—by shouldering the costs of your food, clothing, and other needs—has an inalienable claim upon you: you must treat him with kindness, righteousness, and heartfelt supplication.
Still greater is the right of the one who nurtures your intellect and soul through sound, refining knowledge. His claim over you is the strongest of all. This is one of the outstanding merits of the learned—those teachers who act on what they know—and one of the rights they enjoy over the community. In shaping minds and spirits they may surpass parental nurture many times over. Such is Allah’s grace; He bestows it upon whom He wills.
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His words, “and to close relatives,” mean: do good to your kin, whether near or distant, by both word and deed. Convey to them gifts, charity, and every form of beneficence that gladdens their hearts and eases their affairs. In doing so you uphold family ties and earn reward from Allah.
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“and orphans” refers to those whose fathers have died while they are still young. Out of His mercy, the Most Merciful has commanded people to show them tenderness, to treat them well, to sponsor them, console them, educate them, and raise them as carefully as they would raise their own children—male or female, related or unrelated.
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“and the needy” are those whom poverty has confined, preventing them from securing what suffices for themselves and those they support. Allah therefore ordered that their want be relieved and their hardship removed, urging His servants to meet that need to the extent they are able, without harming themselves.
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“and the neighbour who is a relative” is the neighbour who enjoys both the right of neighbourhood and the right of kinship. “and the distant neighbour” is the one who is not related. A servant must fulfil the neighbour’s right in every case—Muslim or non-Muslim, kin or not—by refraining from harming him, enduring whatever harm comes from him, extending whatever kindness one can, and allowing him to benefit as far as possible.