Surah Al-Baqarah, Verses 3–5 — The Characteristics of the Muttaqīn

Review: Why Guidance Is Specifically “For the Muttaqīn”

The previous lesson ended with a discussion of hudal lil-muttaqīn — “guidance for the muttaqīn” — and raised the question of why the Qur’an, which elsewhere is called guidance for all of humanity (hudal lin-nās), is here being restricted only to the muttaqīn. The resolution lies in the fact that guidance (hidāyah) has two distinct meanings:

1. Guidance as knowledge — indicating the difference between truth and falsehood, showing the path of Allah and the path to Jannah. In this sense the Qur’an gives guidance to everyone, and the prophets and messengers, and after them those who call to Allah, are charged with the responsibility of conveying this guidance. It is in this sense that Allah says to the Prophet: “Indeed, you guide to a straight path” (42:52) — guidance here in the sense of clarification, not in the sense of compelling.

2. Guidance as success (tawfīq) — the capacity to actually walk on the path that has been shown. This second kind of guidance is exclusively within Allah’s authority — no matter how beloved the person or how sincere the effort, no human being can give it to anyone else.

This second matter is truly weighty — at once painful and consoling. Painful, because the one we love most — parents, children, spouse — no matter how much we try, we cannot bring onto the path we wish to see them on. Consoling, because it becomes clear when we notice whom Allah is saying this to: not to some ordinary person, but to His most beloved servant, the most influential and successful dāʿī in history — the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself. Allah tells him clearly: “Indeed, you do not guide whom you love, but Allah guides whom He wills” (28:56). If the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself could not give this guidance to those most beloved to him, then our inability to guide the one we love is no personal failure — it is simply beyond human capacity. In this sense, guidance is created and granted by Allah alone.

This is precisely why the Qur’an says hudal lil-muttaqīn: the Book functions as the guidance of success only when someone receives it with taqwā. However much Qur’an is read, however much truth and falsehood are intellectually distinguished, it yields no fruit until it reaches a heart that is already striving out of fear of Allah’s displeasure. And Allah has promised — in the final verse of Surah Al-ʿAnkabūt — that “those who strive for Us, We will surely guide them to Our paths (subulanā).” Note that the word is plural, subul — many different righteous paths and deeds within Islam, not a single narrow path. The more taqwā a person brings, the more guidance comes; guidance comes in proportion to taqwā.

Definition of taqwā (discussed earlier): carrying out Allah’s commands and abstaining from His prohibitions in order to protect oneself from His anger and punishment. The more consistently a person acts according to this definition, the greater his taqwā.

The Structural Connection Between Surah Al-Fātiḥah and Surah Al-Baqarah

From hudal lil-muttaqīn a natural question arises: if the Qur’an is guidance for the muttaqīn, then who exactly are the muttaqīn, and what are their characteristics? A pattern like this is noticeable throughout the Qur’an: when read with real comprehension, one sees that Allah is often answering precisely the question the preceding verse raises — as though the text were constructed to be read as a continuous conversation.

A beautiful structural connection is also worth mentioning here. Surah Al-Fātiḥah ends with the plea ihdinaṣ-ṣirāṭal-mustaqīm — “Guide us to the straight path.” Immediately after that, on opening the muṣḥaf to Surah Al-Baqarah, the very first substantive description is: this Book is hudal lil-muttaqīn. The guidance asked for at the end of Al-Fātiḥah is answered at the beginning of Al-Baqarah — this very Book, this very Qur’an, is that guidance. This connection is discussed in detail in a work of tafsīr called Naẓm ad-Durar by al-Biqāʿī (born in the 800s AH) — an entire work devoted to investigating the interrelationships among the surahs and verses — a rich but under-used resource, and although it has not been widely translated into Bangla or English, this series occasionally brings discussions from it.

Verse 3: The First Three Characteristics

الَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْغَيْبِ وَيُقِيمُونَ الصَّلَاةَ وَمِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ

“Those who believe in the unseen, establish the prayer, and spend out of what We have provided them.”

First Characteristic: Belief in the Unseen (yuʾminūna bil-ghayb)

Faith in the unseen (al-ghayb): Establishing firm belief in matters beyond the senses on the basis of the reports given by the Messenger ﷺ.

The fundamentals of faith in the unseen are:

• Faith in Allah
• Faith in the angels
• Faith in the Books
• Faith in the prophets and messengers
• Faith in the life after death
• Faith in qadr — destiny, its good and its bad

Al-ghayb — “the unseen” — refers to everything that lies beyond the senses: unseen, untouchable, impossible to verify directly. Belief in it — specifically on the basis of the reports of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ — is what is being described here, and this is an important distinction: this is not blind faith. The Qur’an and the ḥadīth consistently criticize blind, unverified belief. What is being asked for here is belief in the unseen on the basis of the testimony of a specific, verifiable, trustworthy source — such as the Throne of Allah, far larger than the entire visible universe, which although never observed is nevertheless believed in not out of credulity, but because the reporter who conveys this information fulfills every criterion for the reliability of testimony, anywhere at all.

Five reasons why this belief is reasonable, not blind:

1. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was known as trustworthy — even to his enemies, both before and after he began calling to Islam. His title, al-Amīn (“the Trustworthy”), was never disputed even by those who rejected his message; their objection was never about his honesty.

2. He was known for excellent character, acknowledged by friend and enemy alike. A person of such character does not lie about Allah — lying about Allah requires a kind of moral degradation that conflicts with the character even his enemies saw in him.

3. He was unlettered (ummī) — “You did not recite any scripture before it, nor did you write one with your right hand” (29:48). Had he been literate or had prior contact with any scripture, his harshest opponents — Abū Jahl, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah — would have raised it immediately; not one of them ever raised it as an objection, though they had every opportunity and motivation to do so — that in itself is a proof.

4. He presented a literary miracle that no expert could match, even though he had no prior history of poetry or literary composition. Arabic literature is traditionally divided into three categories — poetry, prose, and the Qur’an — because the Qur’an falls into neither of the first two. A direct challenge was issued: let all of mankind and the jinn gather together and produce something equal to it; then this standard was reduced to ten surahs, then to just one surah. To whom was the challenge given? To the experts. Who gave the challenge? One who has no expertise in the matter. And at that time all the experts of Arabic literature were in the opposing camp. They were all Umayyah ibn Khalaf, Abū Jahl, ʿUtbah–Shaybah, Rabīʿah. They were great poets. The mainstream of their literature at that time was poetry. They were challenged. Today, I

think I exercise a lot. I have muscles. I know martial arts. There are another five or ten such people on my team. Now I challenge you to come and fight me. It is understandable that no one will come to fight me. If I am a weak man, I do not go to any gym. I do not do martial arts. I am a weak man. I challenge the five strongest people in the world. Come and fight me. If they are afraid, then you should understand that there is something else behind me. There is someone else. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

In the case of the Qur’an, it is coming out from the mouth of an unlettered Prophet. He has no history of writing poetry. He has no history of writing any book or literature. He is challenging all the great poets of that time who were in the camp opposing him. All kinds of poets know poetry, and one of them says that he even knows the poetry of the jinn. The poetry that is heard from the jinn. Because the people of that time believed that jinn exist, and the people of that time believed it. Now many do not believe, they are atheists or something like that. But of course jinn exist

and the people of that time believed it and they had all sorts of experiences with the jinn. They did not believe it merely on the basis of conjecture. The jinn used to abduct many people. They used to put them to sleep. Many things used to happen then. We may not notice such things much in our daily lives now. Now, those who are in the camp opposing the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ are even saying that we know all kinds of poetry. We are familiar with all kinds of literature. We are familiar with the literature of the jinn. But nothing of the Qur’an

is like anything else. So when they could not cope with the Qur’an — despite being at the pinnacle of literature at that time — then you have to understand that behind this, this is not the work of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

5. He had no motive to lie. Calling to Islam took from him exactly those very things for which false claims are usually made — wealth, power, and status were directly offered to him in exchange for abandoning the message; he refused. There is no motive behind the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ calling to Islam. Because whenever you say that a person is lying, there must certainly be a motive for him. Yes, I said that when I came from the ʿIshāʾ prayer and told you all that I saw such-and-such an incident on the road, you are all certain. Believe me, if someone, for the sake of argument, does not accept it and says no, it seems Nasil is lying — what is the benefit of lying? Then first of all you will look at what the benefit of lying is. What was the benefit for the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ? Rather, what was offered to him if he gave up calling to Islam? Wealth, power, women — everything a person could want.

The six pillars of belief in the unseen must be learned as a fundamental part of ʿaqīdah: belief in Allah, in the angels, in the revealed Books, in the prophets and messengers, in the Hereafter, and in qadr (Allah’s decree, whether it be good or apparently difficult). These six and everything connected to them constitute the scope of what is meant here by “belief in the unseen” — and this, categorically, is not blind faith but reasoned belief established upon the reliability of the report and the reporter.

A structural observation: reading this verse deeply, one sees that the Qur’an is effectively laying out a syllabus. If you want to obtain guidance, you must first believe in the unseen, and you must learn it. To obtain guidance you must first bring taqwā. What is the first condition of taqwā? Correct belief in the unseen — that is, you must first know what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ actually reported, otherwise there will be nothing concrete to believe in. If we do not know what news the Prophet ﷺ gave, then how will our faith come about? So first we must learn faith. And the subject in which faith is learned is called ʿaqīdah.

Second Characteristic: Establishing the Prayer (yuqīmūnaṣ-ṣalāh)

The word iqāmah — to “establish” the prayer, not merely to “perform” it.

Ibn ʿAbbās (raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu): iqāmat aṣ-ṣalāh means, correctly —

• Performing the obligatory acts
• Completing the rukūʿ, sujūd, and recitation
• Performing it with khushūʿ, with seriousness and eagerness

From this comes a direct, practical self-examination: how many of us stand up completely from the rukūʿ and then go into sujūd, take a proper pause between the two prostrations, or go into sujūd calmly rather than rushing into it? Even something as simple as raising the two feet instead of keeping them flat on the ground during sujūd makes many people’s sujūd unacceptable — and most people do not even realize it.

Let me ask you a question: who are the best people in society? There is no doubt that those who go to the masjid are better than those who have no connection with the masjid or the prayer. There is no doubt that wherever you go to a masjid, the number of people you find there are the best people of our society. Now, look at the state of the best people. Just look toward the masjid and see what the state of our prayer is. We become restless while performing the prayer.

Ḥasan al-Baṣrī: iqāmat aṣ-ṣalāh means, correctly —

• Wuḍūʾ
• Rukūʿ, sujūd
• Khushūʿ
• On time

Qatādah: iqāmat aṣ-ṣalāh means, correctly —

• Wuḍūʾ
• Rukūʿ, sujūd
• Safeguarding the appointed time — maintaining its correct time is also included in establishing the prayer — a real and pressing matter, especially considering how commonly Fajr is missed, or how ʿAṣr gets delayed for people busy at work. Delaying the prayer beyond its appointed time is under no circumstances permitted.

Summary: iqāmat aṣ-ṣalāh means —

• Performing it at its appointed time
• Fulfilling the pillars, conditions, and obligatory acts
• Completing the rukūʿ, sujūd, and recitation in full
• Performing it calmly, with khushūʿ and attentiveness

These explanations together bring under iqāmah: praying on time, fulfilling the conditions of the obligatory acts, correct purification, complete recitation, correct rukūʿ and sujūd, and doing all of this with attentiveness and sincerity. This entire body of detail is the second subject in the syllabus of the muttaqīn — and the subject in which it is studied is called fiqh (jurisprudence), specifically fiqh al-ʿibādāt.

(Mawsūʿat at-Tafsīr al-Maʾthūr)

Third Characteristic: Spending From What Has Been Given (mimmā razaqnāhum yunfiqūn)

Razaqnā means “We have provided.” How do you know that this is not a plural or not in the full sense? It is being said with pride? To say something with pride, to say something with pride, to express pride — and for Allah this must certainly be said mentally. Kibriyāʾ, the heavens and the earth, all kibriyāʾ, majesty — who is the Rabb, Allah. We have provided.

This is something that exists in Arabic but not in Bangla. That is why many people may find it difficult to understand. This is majmī nafsahu — majmī nafsahu or nafsih, that is, it is a pronoun that indicates that the speaker is speaking with pride, speaking with his own power, speaking with authority.

In English it is said, it is called the royal, and in Arabic what is māʿj nafsa — there is no need to memorize this, but I said it, that is, by it a plural is not meant, the polytheists do not understand a plural by it, yes, you can rest assured, otherwise Abū Jahl would have been pleased, Abū Jahl and Abū Lahab would not have been pleased, they are not pleased because they speak Arabic, they know what it means, what it means that He is saying this, He is saying it with much authority, He is saying it with much emphasis.

Note the Qur’an’s precise choice of words: it does not say give charity or give zakāh — it says spend (yunfiqūn), a broader word. Now can you say, the third subject is coming — fiqh al-muʿāmalāt (the fiqh of transactions and dealings) — you must learn it: charity and zakāh are certainly included in it, but so too is a husband’s obligatory spending on his wife, and business and trade, and every kind of financial dealing between people.

“They spend from the provision given to them” — this is a characteristic of taqwā. Whatever benefits a person is rizq — Ibn Ḥusayn raḥmatullāhi ʿalayh. He explained this, but not in his tafsīr.

Ibn ʿAṭiyyah (preserved by al-Qurṭubī) gives a useful two-fold definition of rizq here: the provision that sustains the body — food, drink, clothing, shelter, transport — and the provision that sustains faith — knowledge and īmān. Both must be “spent”: material wealth for the sake of Allah, and knowledge for the sake of Allah — calling others to faith by means of what one has learned. Just as you spend from your wealth for people for the sake of Allah’s pleasure, so too do you spend from your knowledge for the sake of Allah’s pleasure. You will call people to faith.

(Ibn ʿAṭiyyah 1/85, Qurṭubī 1/272, Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Sharḥ al-Arbaʿīn an-Nawawiyyah, pp. 101–102)

A practical note on marital spending: a large portion of marital conflict occurs directly because husbands and wives have never studied fiqh al-muʿāmalāt — husbands often do not know what they are actually obliged to provide for their wives, and wives are equally unaware of what a husband is obliged to provide and what he is not. In-laws or relatives who repeatedly ask “why doesn’t he give you this” or “why doesn’t he do that” are in fact causing harm — deliberately creating a rift between husband and wife is described in the ḥadīth as one of the aims of Shayṭān’s closest associates. A far better role as a member of the in-laws or as a well-wisher is the opposite — to work actively to keep the husband and wife at peace with each other, and to remind a spouse of what he or she is receiving rather than increasing dissatisfaction over what he or she is not receiving.

Verse 4: Two More Characteristics

وَالَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِمَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ وَمَا أُنزِلَ مِن قَبْلِكَ وَبِالْآخِرَةِ هُمْ يُوقِنُونَ

“And those who believe in what has been revealed to you, and what was revealed before you, and who are certain of the Hereafter.”

Fourth Characteristic: Belief in What Has Been Revealed — the Book and the Sunnah

“What has been revealed to you” is explained by the Qur’an itself in Surah An-Nisāʾ (4:113): “Allah has revealed to you the Book and the Ḥikmah” — where “the Book” means the Qur’an, and “the Ḥikmah” (wisdom), according to Ibn Kathīr in his explanation of this verse, is the Sunnah. This is a clear example of tafsīr al-Qurʾān bil-Qurʾān — the explanation of the Qur’an by the Qur’an — a methodology associated especially with Ibn Kathīr and, more recently, with Muḥammad al-Amīn ash-Shanqīṭī.

The implication is direct: whoever claims to accept the Qur’an alone while rejecting ḥadīth entirely is, by the very terms of this verse, rejecting a part of what the Qur’an commands belief in — since the Qur’an explicitly names the Sunnah as a second, co-revealed component of “what has been revealed to you.”

“And what was revealed before you” extends this belief to the earlier scriptures — the Tawrāh given to Mūsā ʿalayhis-salām, the Zabūr given to Dāwūd, and the revelations given to other prophets whose names may not even be known. Belief here is in the original form of what Allah actually revealed to them — not in the texts of the Tawrāh or the Bible current today, which are understood to be distorted and altered forms of what was originally revealed to Mūsā ʿalayhis-salām.

Fifth Characteristic: Firm Certainty in the Hereafter

Grammar note: yūqinūn — “they hold firm belief” — this is not temporary belief, but firm, settled conviction.

What are the five characteristics we have found? Number one is the characteristic of the muttaqī. Number one is that they believe in the unseen.

Number two is that they establish the prayer. Number three is that they spend from the provision He has given them. Number four is that they believe in all revelation. What is included in all revelation? The Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the past Books. And number five, what did I find? Wa bil-ākhirati hum yūqinūn — they hold firm belief in the Hereafter. So we must have knowledge of the Hereafter.

The Summary Verse: The Guided and the Successful

أُولَـٰئِكَ عَلَىٰ هُدًى مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ ۖ وَأُولَـٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ

“They are upon guidance from their Lord, and they are the successful ones.”

On the word “Rabb”:

Lord | Creator | Manager | Nurturer | Provider | Helper | Rectifier | Guide

When we call Allah Rabb, many meanings come to mind. He is our Lord. He is the Creator. The most important meaning of calling Allah Rabb is that He created, which applies to no one else. This is why only Allah may be worshipped. Then He is al-Mudabbir, the manager of everything, the giver of everything, the helper, the rectifier, the guardian, the teacher — teacher along with Rabb, which in Bangla we call teacher. This too is related — He rectifies, nurtures, guides, manages, all these meanings, but this word Rabb contains them when we call Allah Rabb.

A point of balāghah (rhetoric) worth pausing over: the verse could easily have said ulāʾikal-mufliḥūn — “they are the successful.” Instead it says ulāʾika humul-mufliḥūn — adding the pronoun hum (“they”) before the predicate — and then it is said as though it were being said that only they are successful. No one else is successful. This construction, grammatically called ḍamīr al-faṣl (the separating pronoun), does two things at once:

1. Ḥaṣr (exclusivity): it indicates that success belongs specifically and solely to this group — no one else attains it in the complete sense.

2. Taʾkīd (emphasis): it removes any doubt — their success is certain, not merely probable.

Ulāʾika humul-mufliḥūn — saying it this way has two benefits.

One is that only they are successful and no one else has succeeded.

Number two is that they are successful, there is no doubt in it.

On the meaning of “falāḥ” (success): attaining everything that is desired and at the same time being free of everything undesirable — a standard that worldly success generally cannot meet.

A word has been used to describe success for which I know no equivalent in Bangla. It is to attain all desired things and to be free of all undesired things. This is narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās raḍiyallāhu ʿanhu. Ibn Jarīr and Ibn Abī Ḥātim have mentioned it in their tafsīrs. I have obtained all desired things. I have been able to be saved from all undesired things. But in this world success is often partial. A person is seen and it is said that he has succeeded. He has got a very big job. But then again the family members lament that yes, all right. He has much fame and a large salary. But he gets no time. He cannot give time to his family. What does this mean? Along with this desired honor or fame or wealth he has also acquired many undesired things. So this success and falāḥ are not the same thing. The success the muttaqīn will have in Jannah is that all their desired things will be fulfilled and they will be free of all the undesired things they had, alḥamdulillāh.

Balāghah: SUMMARY

• With the arrival of the pronoun هُمْ, success has become confined to them (حَصْر) and the meaning has become that their success is certain (تَأكِيد) — [Abū Ḥayyān, Al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ 1/73]
• فَلَاح means: attaining all desired matters and being spared all undesired matters — narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās [Ibn Jarīr, Ibn Abī Ḥātim]

A Complete Syllabus in Five Verses

Reading verses three through five together, one sees that the Qur’an is laying out a complete curriculum for the muttaqīn:

1. Belief in the unseen — reasoned, evidence-based belief in matters beyond the senses, on the basis of the testimony of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Field of study: ʿaqīdah.

2. Establishing the prayer — correct purification, complete recitation, correct rukūʿ and sujūd, prayer on time, performed with sincerity. Field of study: fiqh al-ʿibādāt.

3. Spending from the provision Allah has given — charity and zakāh, but along with them the full range of financial and relational responsibilities including marital spending and business dealings. Field of study: fiqh al-muʿāmalāt.

4. Belief in all revelation — the Qur’an and the Sunnah together, and the earlier scriptures in their original, unaltered form.

5. Firm conviction in the Hereafter — not temporary hope, but settled certainty, which requires its own foundation in detailed knowledge of what comes after death.

The result of implementing these five, according to the final verse: to remain established upon guidance from one’s Lord, and — exclusively and certainly — to be among the truly successful.

Lessons From Verses 1–5

• Only those who are prepared to protect themselves from Allah’s punishment by obeying His commands and prohibitions will benefit from the Qur’an
• The characteristics of the muttaqīn are faith, the prayer, charity, faith in all revelation, and firm belief in the Hereafter
• The importance of charity alongside the prayer
• The importance of social worship alongside personal worship

…………………………

The Salaf explained this in detail — those whose exegetical authority is established, the best three generations named directly by the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: the Companions, the Tābiʿīn, and the Tabaʿ at-Tābiʿīn. Their collective understanding preserves both the text of revelation and its correct interpretation — this is mainstream Islam, not a partisan identity, and returning to their interpretation simply means returning to the source. (A particularly useful resource here is Tafsīr Ibn Abī Ḥātim, sometimes called Tafsīr al-Musawwar — an Arabic compilation of roughly 24 volumes, in which what the Salaf said about every verse is gathered in one place.)