religious service, such as prayer, or vows made for the benefit of religious people, as well as communal funds, such as those of the public treasury and the like. This concerns those who wrongfully consume wealth on ostensibly religious grounds.

Then He said:

“Those who hoard gold and silver and do not spend it in Allah’s cause.”

This includes anyone who hoards wealth instead of meeting obligatory expenditure in Allah’s cause—whether a king, a commander, a wealthy person, or anyone else. Jihad is the activity most deserving of the designation “Allah’s cause.” If this includes hoarded wealth acquired through inheritance or earnings, then it applies even more strongly to hoarded communal wealth, to which the entire community is entitled and which should serve its welfare.

Section

Now that some of the meaning of “believer” and “hypocrite” has become clear, if a person reads Surah al-Ahzāb and learns from the accounts transmitted in hadith, Quranic commentary, jurisprudence, and narratives of the Prophet’s military campaigns what the event concerning which the Quran was revealed was like, then compares the present event with that one, he will find confirmation of what we have said: people divided into the same three categories in this event as they did in that one. Many matters that seemed ambiguous will also become clear to him.