﴿12-13﴾ “O you who believe, when you confer privately with the Messenger, give charity before your private consultation. That is better for you and purer. But if you have nothing to give, Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful. * Are you afraid to give charities before your private consultations? Since you did not do so and Allah has pardoned you, establish prayer, give zakat, and obey Allah and His Messenger. Allah is fully aware of all that you do.”

⦗847⦘ Allah Most High commands the believers to give charity before privately consulting His Messenger Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, thereby disciplining and instructing them and honoring the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Such honor is better and purer for the believers; that is, it increases their goodness and reward and purifies them of defilements. These include failing to respect the Messenger and observe proper conduct toward him by requesting excessive private consultations that serve no purpose.

When charity was required before consulting him, it became a test: anyone eager for goodness and knowledge would not mind giving charity, whereas anyone with neither eagerness nor desire for goodness, whose only aim was to talk at length, would thereby refrain from burdening the Messenger. This applied to those who could afford to give charity. As for those who could not, Allah did not make the matter difficult for them; rather, He excused and pardoned them and permitted them to consult the Messenger privately without first giving charity they could not afford.

Then, when He saw the believers’ apprehension and the hardship of giving charity before every private consultation, He eased the matter for them and did not take them to task for failing to give charity beforehand. Honoring and respecting the Messenger remained in force and was not abrogated, because this ruling was prescribed as a means to another end, not for its own sake. The intended objective was to observe proper conduct toward the Messenger and honor him.

Allah Most High then commanded them to uphold the major obligations that are intended for their own sake, saying, “Since you did not do so”—meaning that giving charity was not easy for you. That alone, however, was insufficient, for a command is not conditional upon its being easy for the servant. He therefore qualified it by saying, “And Allah has pardoned you,” meaning that He excused you for it. “Then establish prayer” with all its pillars, conditions, prescribed limits, and necessary duties, “and give zakat”—the obligatory zakat [from your wealth]—to those entitled to receive it.

These two acts of worship are the foundations of bodily and financial worship. Whoever performs them in the manner prescribed by the Sacred Law has fulfilled the rights of Allah and the rights of His servants. [That is why He then said:] “And obey Allah and His Messenger.” This is the most comprehensive of commands.

This includes obeying Allah [and obeying] His Messenger by fulfilling their commands, avoiding their prohibitions, affirming the truth of what they have reported, and stopping at the limits set by Allah (1).

What counts in all of this is sincerity and excellence. Allah therefore says, “Allah is fully aware of all that you do.” Allah Most High knows their deeds and the manner in which they were performed, and He will recompense them according to His knowledge of what their hearts conceal.