“They believe in Allah and the Last Day, enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, and hasten to do good deeds. Those are among the righteous. Whatever good they do will never be denied them, and Allah knows best those who are mindful of Him. Indeed, neither their wealth nor their children will avail those who disbelieve anything against Allah. They are the companions of the Fire; they shall abide therein forever. The likeness of what they spend in this worldly life is that of a wind containing bitter cold, which strikes the crops of a people who have wronged themselves and destroys them. Allah did not wrong them; rather, they wronged themselves.” (114–117)
His saying, Exalted is He: “They believe in Allah and the Last Day, enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, and hasten to do good deeds. Those are the righteous.”
“And whatever good they do will never be denied them”: Hamzah, al-Kisa’i, and Hafs read both verbs with the third-person prefix, as a statement concerning the upright community. The others read both with the second-person prefix, in view of His saying, “You are the best community.” Abu ‘Amr accepted both readings. The meaning of the verse is: Whatever good you do, you will never be deprived of its reward; rather, it will be appreciated for you and you will be recompensed for it. “And Allah knows best those who are mindful of Him”—that is, the believers.
“Indeed, neither their wealth nor their children will avail those who disbelieve anything against Allah”: that is, neither their wealth, offered as ransom, nor their children, offering support, will ward off any part of Allah’s punishment from them. He specifically mentions these two because a person may at times defend himself by ransoming himself with wealth, and at other times by seeking the assistance of his children. “They are the companions of the Fire; they shall abide therein forever.” He calls them its companions because they are its people: they will neither leave it nor part from it, just as a man’s companion does not part from him.
“The likeness of what they spend in this worldly life”: It was said that this refers to the expenditures of Abu Sufyan and his companions at Badr and Uhud in hostility to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. Muqatil said: It refers to the spending of the Jews upon their scholars. Mujahid said: It means all the expenditures of the disbelievers in this world (1) and their charitable donations. It was also said that it refers to the spending of one who acts for show and does not seek thereby Allah’s pleasure. “It is like a wind containing bitter cold.” It is related from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, that it is a scorching, deadly wind; and it was said: (2) it contains a loud sound. But most exegetes said that it contains severe cold. “It strikes the crops of a people”—that is, the cultivated fields of a people—“who have wronged themselves” through disbelief, disobedience, and withholding what is due to Allah, “and destroys them.”
Thus, the meaning of the verse is that the disbelievers’ expenditures, in their being lost when they are needed, are like crops struck by a cold wind which destroys them, or by a fire which burns them, so that their owners derive no benefit from them at all. “Allah did not wrong them” thereby; “rather, they wronged themselves” through disbelief and disobedience.