Use-abuse of Property

Sura-4 [Al Nissa Medina 92]

The Quranic Text & Ali’s version:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ ...

4:29.  O ye who believe!

... لاَ تَأْكُلُواْ أَمْوَالَكُمْ بَيْنَكُمْ بِالْبَاطِلِ إِلاَّ أَن تَكُونَ تِجَارَةً عَن تَرَاضٍ مِّنكُمْ...  

eat not up your property among yourselves in vanities: but let there be amongst you traffic and trade by mutual goodwill:

C541. Let me paraphrase this verse, for there is profound meaning in it.

1.     All your property you hold in trust, whether it is in your name, or belongs to the community, or to people over whom you have control. To waste is wrong.

2.     In 2:188 the same phrase occurred, to caution us against greed.

Here it occurs, to encourage us to increase property by economic use (traffic and trade), recalling Christ's parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30), where the servants who had increased their master's wealth were promoted and the servant who had hoarded was cast into darkness.

3.     We are warned that our waste may mean our own destruction ("nor kill or destroy yourselves").

But there is a more general meaning also:

we must be careful of our own and other people's lives. We must commit no violence.

This is the opposite of "trade and traffic by mutual good-will."

4.     Our violence to our own brethren is particularly preposterous, seeing that Allah has loved and showered His mercies on us and all His creatures.

... وَلاَ تَقْتُلُواْ أَنفُسَكُمْ إِنَّ اللّهَ كَانَ بِكُمْ رَحِيمًا ﴿٢٩﴾

nor kill (or destroy) yourselves:

for verily Allah hath been to you Most Merciful.

Other versions:

4: 29 O you who have attained to faith! Do not devour one another's possessions wrongfully - not even by way of trade based on mutual agreement - and do not destroy one another: for, behold, God is indeed a dispenser of grace unto you!

4:30 And as for him who does this with malicious intent and a will to do wrong - him shall We, in time, cause to endure [suffering through] fire: for this is indeed easy for God. Asad,see note 38

4:29 O you who believe! Eat not up your property among yourselves in vanities: but let there be amongst you traffic and trade by mutual good will: Nor kill ( or destroy) yourselves: for verily God has been to you Most Merciful! Ali, see note 541

4: 29 O you who believe! Squander not your wealth among yourselves in vanity, except it be a trade by mutual consent, and kill not onw another, Lo! Allah is ever merciful unto you.

4: 32 Hence, do not covet the bounties which God has bestowed more abundantly on some of you than on others.

Men shall have a benefit from what they earn, women shall have a benefit from what they earn.

Ask, therefore, God [to give you] out of His bounty: behold, God has indeed full knowledge of everything.

4: 36, 37 ….Verily, God does not love any of those who , full of self-conceit, act in a boastful manner;

[nor] those who are niggardly, and bid others to be niggardly,

and conceal whatever God has bestowed upon them out of His bounty; and so We have readied shameful suffering for all who thus deny the truth.