The Soorah starts with drawing the reader’s / listener’s attention to reflect upon a certain behaviour – the behaviour of a person who denies the Deen. The word Deen has two meanings:

• The paradigm according to which people make their decisions in life; Islam is the Deen of Muslims in that sense.

• The recompense (reward or punishment) given to people as a result of their accountability on the Day of Judgement.

As in Soorah Faatiĥah, Deen here refers to the recompense to be given in the Hereafter.

This type of behaviour was clearly found among the arch enemies of Islam and Muslims. For example, according to the Tafseer by Ameen Ahsan Islaahi, Aboo Lahab was in charge of Holy Ka‘bah’s food fund that was established to feed the pilgrims, travellers, orphans and needy, but he had misappropriated it for his personal benefit as his own wealth, depriving those who deserved help. He had become quite a wealthy man through ill gains. At the same time, he was extremely stingy and hated to spend even a penny for public welfare. Despite being a wealthy man, he never even supported his own orphaned-nephew, the Prophet sall Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, who was raised by his other uncle, Aboo Ŧaalib who was financially poor. He was harsh in rebuking the orphans away instead of helping them.

Similar things have been reported about Aboo Jahl from Al-Maawardi’s book, “Signs of the Prophethood” that he was the guardian of an orphan, but was not spending the orphan’s share of inheritance on the orphan’s basic needs. One day the orphan came to Aboo Jahl to seek help from the inheritance belonging to him, and he was in such a destitute condition that he did not even have clothes on his body. Aboo Jahl ignored him completely until the poor child walked away disappointed and helpless. Some spectators asked the orphan boy to complain about it to the Prophet. They thought it would be funny to see how the Prophet sall Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, reacted to the boy’s complaint, knowing that Aboo Jahl was the Prophet’s sworn enemy. Not knowing the circumstances, the boy innocently went to the Prophet sall Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and complained. When the Prophet heard the matter, without hesitating even for a moment, he took the boy with him, went to Aboo Jahl and demanded that he gave the boy his due. The spectators were surprised that Aboo Jahl was so much under the awe of the Prophet sall Allaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, that he immediately complied and paid the boy.

Instead of saying “encourage feeding the poor”, the verse uses the style that connotes “encourage giving of poor’s food”. The latter style has been used to impress upon people that helping poor people fill their stomach is not a favour that rich people do to the poor. Rather, poor people have the right to have their food as a compulsory item in the budgets of the well to do people. As the Qur-aan says in Soorah Al-M‘aarij:

“In their wealth there is a designated / known right, for the beggars and the deprived”. (70:24-25)

“Small kindnesses” refer to giving to friends, neighbours or needy people little things of daily use or lending some tools, implements or utensils for temporary use.

The most important point that should be noted from the last three verses of the Soorah is the relationship between the acts of worship and the goodness of character. These verses clearly indicate that if a person is not kind, sharing and caring, his acts of worship are neither sincere nor proper. Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala’s sincere worship executed properly will result in a personality that cares for Allaah’s creations. If a person is seen to be practising rituals of worship regularly but lacks kindness and care for people, he is either merely completing the mechanics of the worship rather than worshipping properly, or he just shows off to be seen as a worshipper, while in fact he is not.