Ar-Room (The Romans)

37. “Do they not see that Allah enlarges the provision for whomever He pleases and straitens? Verily there are signs in this for people who believe.”

Being attentive that the sustenance is with Allah, it hinders man of being despair. Every body must struggle for earning his livelihood, but he must know that determining the proportions of livelihood is in Allah’s authority so, the Qur’an in this verse says:

“Do they not see that Allah enlarges the provision for whomever He pleases and straitens?…”

Neither the manifestation of bounties must cause man’s pride, negligence, and disobedience, nor should its absence bring despair for him, because affluence and straitening of sustenance is in the power of Allah, and sometimes He assigns the former and sometimes the latter.

It is true that the world is the world of means and those who strive more usually obtain a better portion of provisions, and those who are lazy and do not work hard have a smaller share, but in the meantime this is not a general and permanent principle.

It happens that sometimes some very earnest, studious and eligible persons do their best but they gain nothing and, on the contrary, there are some maladroit ones to whom the doors of provision are open from every side.

These exceptions may be for the sake that Allah shows that, with all effects that He has created in the world of means, they should not be lost in the world of means, and they should not forget that behind this system there is another strong hand that turns it.

Sometimes He takes it so straitened that the more he strives the less he gets, because all doors are shut to him, and sometime He takes it so easy that before reaching to a door that door may be opened in front of him.

This fact with the examples of which we have, more or less, been familiar in our own life, besides that it struggles against the pride for affluence and despair emerged from poverty, it is an evidence upon the fact that, beyond our will and our wish, there is another powerful hand in affairs.

Therefore, at the end of the verse, the Qur’an says:

“…Verily there are signs in this for people who believe.”

Some of the Islamic commentators have stated that once a knowledgeable man was asked:

“What is the proof that there is only one creator for the world?”

Then he answered:

“For three proofs: that the clever persons are (usually) backward, the artists and learned men are often poor, and the physicians are (sometimes) sick.”

Yes, the existence of these exceptions is a sign for the fact that the affairs are entirely in the hand of another one.

A famous tradition narrated from Hadrat Ali (as) indicates that he said:

“I came to know Allah, the Glorified, through the breaking of determinations, change of intentions, and losing of courage.”1