repeat it. It might be argued that only reminders of generosity and hurt accompanying charity invalidate it, not those that follow it. Yet nothing in the wording indicates this restriction, and the context indicates that they invalidate it without qualification. It might also be argued that the comparison with someone who gives to be seen by others and does not believe in Allah and the Last Day indicates that the invalidating reminders and hurt are those accompanying the charity, just as ostentation and lack of faith accompany it: ostentation arising after a deed would not invalidate it. There are two answers to this:

First, the comparison concerns the condition that nullifies the deed: that of the ostentatious giver and that of the giver who reminds others of his generosity and hurts them. Each nullifies his deed.

Second, ostentation can only accompany the deed, since its Arabic name follows the fi‘āl pattern and is derived from seeing: the person performs the deed so that people will see it. It therefore cannot come afterward. Reminders of generosity and hurt, by contrast, may either accompany the deed or follow it; indeed, they follow it more often than they accompany it.

His words, “like one who spends,” may mean “like the invalidation of the charity of one who spends,” thus comparing one invalidation with another. Alternatively, the meaning may be, “Do not be like one who spends his wealth to be seen by people,” thus comparing one giver with another.

His words, “His likeness,” mean that the likeness of this giver, whose spending has lost its reward, is that of a smooth rock, a safwān. There are two views concerning this word: first, that it is singular; second, that it is the plural of safwah. “Covered with dust: a downpour strikes it”—that is, heavy rain—“and leaves it bare,” meaning smooth, with no vegetation or anything else upon it.

This is among the most eloquent and beautiful parables. It likens the heart of this ostentatious giver, whose spending did not proceed from faith in Allah and the Last Day, to a rock because of its hardness, rigidity, and lack of benefit. It also likens the traces of charity clinging to his heart to the dust clinging to that rock. The downpour that washes the dust off the rock and carries it away is likened to the factor that invalidates his charity and wipes it out. Just as the downpour washes away the dust upon the rock and leaves it bare, the giver can obtain none of his reward, because it has been nullified and lost.

There is another meaning here: someone who spends for other than Allah outwardly performs a deed that brings reward and grows for him, just as a grain grows when it is sown in soil