LessonsThe Subject of Predication: Pronouns of Affair, Iltifāt and Departure from Expected ExpressionQuiz

«يَسْأَلُونَكَ مَاذَا يُنْفِقُونَ قُلْ مَا أَنْفَقْتُمْ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَلِلْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالْأَقْرَبِينَ وَالْيَتَامَىٰ وَالْمَسَاكِينِ وَابْنِ السَّبِيلِ»
They ask what they should spend. Say: whatever good you spend is for parents, relatives, orphans, the needy, and the traveler. (Qurʾān 2:215)

The apparent inquiry asks what should be given. The answer directs attention to whom the spending should benefit. Knowing that wealth may be spent is incomplete without regard to suitable recipients.

This is a redirection that supplies immediately useful moral and practical guidance. It does not reduce all the verse’s legal or exegetical dimensions to this one rhetorical observation.

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What to give and whom to benefit

The Subject of Predication: Pronouns of Affair, Iltifāt and Departure from Expected Expression

«يَسْأَلُونَكَ مَاذَا يُنْفِقُونَ قُلْ مَا أَنْفَقْتُمْ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَلِلْوَالِدَيْنِ وَالْأَقْرَبِينَ وَالْيَتَامَىٰ وَالْمَسَاكِينِ وَابْنِ السَّبِيلِ»
They ask what they should spend. Say: whatever good you spend is for parents, relatives, orphans, the needy, and the traveler. (Qurʾān 2:215)

The apparent inquiry asks what should be given. The answer directs attention to whom the spending should benefit. Knowing that wealth may be spent is incomplete without regard to suitable recipients.

This is a redirection that supplies immediately useful moral and practical guidance. It does not reduce all the verse’s legal or exegetical dimensions to this one rhetorical observation.