(2) “Give the orphans their property; do not exchange the bad for the good, and do not consume their property along with your own. Indeed, that is a grave sin.”

Allah Most High says: “Give the orphans their property; do not exchange the bad for the good, and do not consume their property along with your own. Indeed, that is a grave sin.” This is the first right owed to others that He enjoined in this surah. These are orphans who have lost their fathers, who provided for them (1); they are young and weak and unable to manage their own affairs.

The Most Kind, the Most Merciful therefore commanded His servants to treat them well, to deal with their property only in the best manner, and to hand it over to them intact and undiminished once they reach maturity and sound judgment. He also commanded: “Do not exchange the bad”—namely, the wrongful consumption of an orphan’s property—“for the good,” meaning lawful wealth that entails neither sin nor liability. “And do not consume their property along with your own,” meaning together with your own property. This highlights how reprehensible it is to consume their property under such circumstances, when a person has no need of it because Allah has granted him provision in his own wealth. Whoever dares to do so despite this has committed “a grave sin”—that is, an enormous sin and a grievous burden.

One form of exchanging the bad for the good is for a guardian to take something valuable from the orphan’s property and replace it with something inferior from his own. The verse also establishes guardianship over the orphan, because handing the orphan’s property over to him necessarily presupposes that the person handing it over had guardianship over that property.