بن بِشْرِ
بن الْحَكَمِ وَمُحَمَّدُ بن عَقِيلِ بن خُوَيْلِدٍ قالا ثنا
عَلِيُّ بن الْحُسَيْنِ بن وَاقِدٍ حدثني أبي حدثني يَزِيدُ
النَّحْوِيُّ أَنَّ عِكْرِمَةَ حدثه عن بن عَبَّاسٍ قال لَمَّا
قَدِمَ النبي صلي اللّٰه عليه وسلم الْمَدِينَةَ كَانُوا من
أَخْبَثِ الناس كَيْلًا فَأَنْزَلَ اللّٰه سُبْحَانَهُ وَيْلٌ
لِلْمُطَفِّفِينَ فَأَحْسَنُوا الْكَيْلَ بَعْدَ ذلك
‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas stated: “When the Prophet (sws) came to
Madinah, he found that its people were the worst in measuring
goods [while selling them]. At this, God, the glorious,
revealed وَيْلٌ لِلْمُطَفِّفِينَ .
After that, they became very adept in this measurement.”
Following is the schematic illustration of the isnad of this
narrative’s variants:
Consider the initial verses of the Surah al-Mutaffifin:
وَیۡلٌ لِّلۡمُطَفِّفِیۡنَ الَّذِیۡنَ اِذَا
اکۡتَالُوۡا عَلَی النَّاسِ یَسۡتَوۡفُوۡنَ وَ اِذَا کَالُوۡهُمۡ
اَوۡ وَّزَنُوۡهُمۡ یُخۡسِرُوۡنَ (83: 1-3)
Woe be to those who weigh and measure less!
Who exact full measure when they take from others, and when
they measure or weigh for others give less than what is due.
(83:1-3)
While explaining them, Amin Ahsan Islahi
writes:
Mentioned here is a certain trait of people
who weigh and measure less. It is evident from this mention
that the objective is not merely to delineate this trait but
to bring out a certain feature: a person is very sensitive and
vigilant that others should weigh and measure correctly for
him and would never like any dishonesty in this matter;
however, when this very person weighs and measures for others
he has no qualms about being dishonest. It is evident from
this feature of a person that he is not devoid of the
conception of justice and the fact that it must necessarily be
administered; he knows full well that honesty should be
observed in both cases at all costs; moreover, he fully knows
that he should not like for others what he does not like for
himself; when he becomes dishonest in such cases, then he in
fact goes against his own nature purely being overwhelmed with
selfishness. This of course is open injustice and a very mean
thing.
It is evident from this discussion that the
Creator has placed a barometer in a person to differentiate
between oppression and justice and He has also put in him a
dislike for the former and a liking for the latter. If even
after this awareness, he commits oppression it is not because
he is not able to distinguish between the two or because he is
not aware whether oppression is in fact oppression; the real
reason, as pointed out above, is because he is so overcome by
some desire or emotion that he is unable to maintain a
balance.
To elaborate the point discussed in these
verses, one can say that when a thief steals something from
someone’s house, he would never want anyone to steal from his
own house; similarly, a murderer who kills someone would never
want that someone be after his life or that of his near ones.
Similarly, an adulterer who violates the honour of a lady will
never be happy if someone attacks the honour of his own wife.
In fact, if all these thieves, murderers and adulterers are
inquired to express their impartial opinion, they will even
confess that there should be no place in the society for
thieves, murderers and adulterers and other such criminals.
Only those people should be members of a society who protect
the life, wealth and integrity of others the way they would
desire the protection of their own life, wealth and integrity.
This attitude of a person and this aspect
of his nature bear obvious evidence to the fact that neither
does he regard good and evil to be alike nor is he satisfied
with the equal treatment of the two. His impartial verdict is
that both should be dealt with in a different manner. An
obvious corollary of this is that the Almighty should bring
about a day in which He deals with the righteous and the
wrong-doers according to their deeds. If He does not do so, it
would mean that the righteous and the wrong-doers are equal in
spite of the fact that this would be against the nature
endowed to human beings by the Creator. Here, in this verse,
it is this human nature which is presented as evidence to
prove the certitude of reward and punishment. By doing so, the
Qur’an has actually borne witness against the rejecters of the
Day of Judgement who are bent upon denying the warnings of the
Qur’an regarding the Day of Judgement even though they are not
able to deny this evidence of their own nature.
While explaining this verse, our exegetes
have cited a narrative which says that the Ansar tribe was
plagued with the evil habit of weighing and measuring
dishonestly; it was this situation that occasioned the
revelation of this verse. However, firstly, this surah is
Makkan and not Madinan. Moreover, even if it is supposed that
this bad habit was found in the Ansar, then it could only have
been to the extent that it was found in the Makkans. In fact,
there was a much greater chance of it to be found in the
Makkans because they were generally traders by profession
whereas the real profession of the Ansar was agriculture. The
strongest point is that the purport of this verse is not meant
to censure weighing and measuring less. It is, in fact, meant
to state the fact that a person is fully capable of
distinguishing justice from injustice, as is indicated
earlier. If he does evil, he goes against the evidence borne
by his nature to quench some base desire. This nature of a
human being entails that a day come in which the righteous and
the wicked are completely discriminated from one another. If
a person denies such a day, then the
only reason for this attitude is that he wants to evade facing
reward and punishment even though this is a demand of his
nature. (Tadabbur-i Qur’an, vol. 9,
254-255)
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