QURTUBI (al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān) :

﴿الَّذِينَ يُنْفِقُونَ﴾ “Those who spend”

This is part of the description of the muttaqīn (the God-conscious) for whom Paradise has been prepared. The apparent sense of the verse is praise for performing a recommended act (madḥ bi-fiʿl al-mandūb).

Scholars gave several readings of al-sarrāʾ (السَّرَّاء) and al-ḍarrāʾ (الضَّرَّاء):

• Ease and hardship (al-yusr wa al-ʿusr) — Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Kalbī, Muqātil.
• Prosperity and adversity (al-rakhāʾ wa al-shidda) — ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr and al-Ḍaḥḥāk.
• In health and sickness.
• al-sarrāʾ = spending during life; al-ḍarrāʾ = bequeathing after death (waṣiyya).
• al-sarrāʾ = at weddings and feasts (al-ʿurs wa al-walāʾim); al-ḍarrāʾ = in calamities and funerals (al-nawāʾib wa al-maʾātim).
• al-sarrāʾ = the spending that pleases you, like on children and relatives; al-ḍarrāʾ = spending on enemies.
• al-sarrāʾ = what a young man uses to host and give gifts; al-ḍarrāʾ = what he spends on people of distress and gives them in charity.

Qurtubī’s own verdict (“qultu”): the verse is general (taʿumm) — it covers all of these.

Al-Rāzī gives three aspects (wujūh):

First: They do not abandon spending in times of prosperity, ease and ability — nor in hardship. In short: al-sarrāʾ = wealth (al-ghinā), al-ḍarrāʾ = poverty (al-faqr). It is related of some of the salaf that one of them sometimes gave a single onion in charity; and of ʿĀʾisha (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhā) that she gave a single grape in charity.

Second: Whether they are in joy or grief, hardship or ease, they never abandon doing good to people (al-iḥsān ilā al-nās).

Third: That good-doing and spending — whether it pleases them (because it agrees with their nature) or pains them (because it goes against their nature) — they do not abandon it. And God opened with the mention of spending (infāq) because it is a difficult act of obedience (ṭāʿa shāqqa), and because at that time it was the noblest act of obedience, owing to the need for it in fighting the enemy and supporting the poor among the Muslims.

Insight / Lesson: True generosity isn’t tied to your mood or your bank balance. The God-conscious give when it’s easy and when it’s hard, in joy and in grief, on those they love and even on those they don’t. Because Qurtubī rules the verse is general, every one of those scholarly examples is simply one face of a single quality: giving in every condition.

ALUSI :

The object of “yunfiqūn” (what exactly they spend) is deliberately omitted (maḥdhūf) — so the phrase takes in everything suitable for praiseworthy spending; or it is dropped entirely, as in the Arabs’ saying “fulānun yuʿṭī” (“so-and-so gives” — without saying what he gives).

The root of al-sarrāʾ is the state that pleases; al-ḍarrāʾ, the state that harms. The most obvious reading (al-mutabādir) is what the ḥabr (Ibn ʿAbbās) said. What’s meant is either the literal sense or generalization (taʿmīm), as is customary in such cases — i.e., they never fail, in any state, to spend whatever they can, much or little.

Insight / Lesson: Even the grammar is generous. By not naming what these people spend, the verse leaves the door open to every kind of giving — money, food, knowledge, time, a kind word. “He gives” — full stop — describes someone whose whole identity is giving, not a person who gave one specific thing once.