Enjoin prayer on thy people, and be constant therein. We ask thee not to provide sustenance: We provide it for thee. But the (fruit of) the Hereafter is for righteousness. Ta-Ha 20:132 ⧉
Tafsir:
These verses are addressed not only to the Prophet, but to all of the faithful. In this world when a man dedicates himself to faith and dawah work, his life as a result becomes one of toil and struggle. In sharp contrast are those who, free from such responsibilities, spend their days in ease and comfort. Satan stresses this state of affairs and creates doubts and evil ideas in a man’s heart. He tries to shake the faith of both the believer and the missionary by making them feel that if the path chosen by them had been the true path of God, they would not have had to suffer so much. But, if the matter is examined in depth, it would appear that, beyond this temporary outward difference, there is another type of difference which is much more worthwhile. It is that whatever the world-loving people had received from God was only for the purposes of trial and purely of a temporary nature, leaving nothing in store for the eternal life of the Hereafter. On the other hand, what the believer and the missionary has received as a result of his devotion to God is much more valuable, i.e. God’s remembrance, concern for the Hereafter, a life of piety and prayer, anxiety to save God’s subjects from the reckoning of the Hereafter. This is also a form of sustenance (rizq). In fact, it is a higher type of sustenance, because this will be returned to the believer in the shape of boundless and inexhaustible blessings.