Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 272
272 should not proceed from any expectation of receiving a return (17:27; 74:7). It is indeed the highest bounty of God that He should have endowed man with appropriate faculties and capacities and then subjected the universe to man’s beneficent service to enable him to achieve the fullest development of his faculties in every sphere of life. Yet some people, instead of putting their faculties to beneficent use in the service of their fellow beings and in spending that which they possess for the same purpose, have a tendency to hold back, not realising that even from the purely selfish point of view the greatest benefit is to be derived from beneficent spending and not from parsimonious holding back. This is the fundamental principle which is the basis of all prosperity, individual, national, and universal. The Quran emphasises this repeatedly. For instance: “Behold, you are those who are favoured by being called upon to spend in the way of Allah; but of you there are some who hold back, yet whoso holds back does so only to the prejudice of his own soul. It is Allah who is All-Sufficient, and it is you who are needy” (47:39). Holding back renders a person progressively poorer in the true sense inasmuch as he stultifies his faculties, and by putting that which he possesses out of service and out of circulation, renders it completely barren and unfruitful.