Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Surah Al-Baqarah
Surah 2 · Al-Baqarah · verse 215 of 286

Quran 2:215 · Al-Baqarah

يَسۡـَٔلُونَكَ مَاذَا يُنفِقُونَۖ قُلۡ مَآ أَنفَقۡتُم مِّنۡ خَيۡرٖ فَلِلۡوَٰلِدَيۡنِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبِينَ وَٱلۡيَتَٰمَىٰ وَٱلۡمَسَٰكِينِ وَٱبۡنِ ٱلسَّبِيلِۗ وَمَا تَفۡعَلُواْ مِنۡ خَيۡرٖ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بِهِۦ عَلِيمٞ

They ask you, [O Muhammad], what they should spend. Say, "Whatever you spend of good is [to be] for parents and relatives and orphans and the needy and the traveler. And whatever you do of good - indeed, Allah is Knowing of it

Translation: Sahih International
Maulana’s commentary · Tazkirul Quran

Man thinks that the best utilization of his life and wealth is for the benefit of his family. He is happy to expend his wealth for his own desires and ambitions. But Islam urges him to spend for the cause of God, which is quite a different form of expenditure, involving spending on others rather than just on oneself. Another tendency is to expend all one’s energy on attaining a high worldly position—something which meets the eye—while everlasting reward, which we as yet cannot see, should be one’s most important goal. What man may dislike might be pleasing to God. For that alone will benefit us in the next, infinitely vaster world. In God’s sight, evil lies in man giving preference to his own pleasure rather than the pleasure of his Creator. Evil may benefit a person in this temporal world; in the hereafter it will do him only harm.

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Tazkirul Quran

In the lectures

Maulana does not cite this verse in the lectures indexed so far. The verses of this surah Maulana does cite →