and He will give you your rewards”—the recompense for your deeds in the Hereafter—“and will not ask you”—that is, your Lord will not ask you for—“your wealth” in order to grant you reward. Rather, He commands you to believe and obey so that He may reward you with Paradise for doing so. A parallel is His saying: “I do not desire from them any provision” (al-Dhariyat 57). It was also said: Muhammad will not ask you for your wealth. A parallel is: “Say, ‘I do not ask you for it any payment’” (al-Furqan 57).

It was also said that the meaning of the verse is that Allah and His Messenger do not ask you for all your wealth in charitable dues; rather, they ask of you but a small portion of abundant wealth: one quarter of one tenth. So give it willingly. Ibn Uyaynah held this view, as indicated by the context of the verse: ⦗128/b⦘

“If He were to ask you for it and press you, you would withhold, and He would expose your rancor. (37) Here you are, called upon to spend in the way of Allah; yet among you are those who withhold. Whoever withholds does so only to his own loss. Allah is the Self-Sufficient, while you are the needy. And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; then they will not be like you. (38)”

“If He were to ask you for it and press you”: that is, if He were to burden you and insist that you give all of it. One says, “So-and-so pressed another,” when he burdened him and persistently demanded something of him.

“You would withhold”: you would withhold it and not give it. “And He would expose your rancor”: your hatred and enmity. Qatadah said: Allah knew that asking people for their wealth would bring forth their rancor.

“Here you are, called upon to spend in the way of Allah”: meaning, to give what Allah has made obligatory upon you. “Yet among you are those who withhold”: from the zakah made obligatory upon them. “Whoever withholds does so only to his own loss. Allah is the Self-Sufficient”: free of need of your charitable gifts and your obedience, “while you are the needy”: in need of Him and of the goodness that is with Him. “And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; then they will not be like you”; rather, they will be better than you and more obedient to Allah than you.

Al-Kalbi said: They are Kindah and al-Nakha. Al-Hasan said: They are the non-Arabs. Ikrimah said: Persia and the Romans.

Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Abi Nasr al-Kufani informed us; Abu Muhammad Abd al-Rahman ibn Umar informed us; Ishaq al-Najibi al-Misri, known as Ibn al-Nahhas, narrated to us; Abu al-Tayyib al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Rayashi informed us; Yunus ibn Abd al-Ala narrated to us; Ibn Wahb narrated to us; Muslim ibn Khalid narrated to us, from al-Ala ibn Abd al-Rahman, from