vii) Charity:

The seventh quality is being charitable. One level of spending in the way of God is that one should pay the obligatory zakah from his wealth. A higher level is that he considers whatever wealth remains with him after spending on his personal and business needs to be the right of the society and whenever he sees someone in need, he whole-heartedly helps him. Perhaps the highest level in this regard is that he fulfils the needs of others while sacrificing his own needs and ignoring his own desires. The Qur’an refers to this attitude by the words:وَ يُؤثِرُوْنَ عَلَى أنْفُسِهِمْ وَ لَوْ كَانَ بِهِمْ خَصَاصَة (59: 9) (those who, in spite of being needy, give preference to the needs of others, (59:9)). The words of the verse under discussion “those who give in charity” can be used for all these three levels of people. However, when enumerating the qualities of a person, he is called a mutasaddiq (as is in the verse under discussion), it would primarily refer to the highest level mentioned above. In other words, this quality in a person means that he is a generous and large-hearted person who is always on the look out to spend in the way of God. This actually is a manifestation of the previously mentioned khushu – this time in relation to human beings. It was for this reason that the prayer and spending in the way of God are generally mentioned adjacently in the Quran.

viii) The Fast:

The eighth quality is keeping the fast. It specifically targets disciplining the soul and nurturing patience. The Quran says that its objective is to achieve piety (taqwa). Thus al-saimin (those who fast) are people who have such a strong desire to become pious that they often keep fasting to attain it. It follows from this that these people are the ones who abstain from evil, desist from vulgarity and their life is an embodiment of the highest of morals.

ix) Guarding the Private Parts:

The ninth quality is guarding the private parts. This is a consequence of disciplining the soul and of piety. This expression which refers to people who refrain from nudity, lewdness and vulgarity also occurs in some other verses of the Quran. The implication is that they guard their chastity and modesty to the utmost. Thus except at instances they are allowed to reveal themselves, they never do so whether in private or in public. They also do not wear clothes which reveal body parts which have sexual attraction in any manner for the opposite gender. It is this extent of abstaining from vulgarity that produces the society in which chastity reigns supreme and men and women instead of trying to reveal their bodies are anxious to conceal them as much as they can.

(Javed Ahmed Ghamidi)

(Translated by Dr. Shehzad Saleem)