A Provider Without Any Stores of Provision

Allah (swt) is also the provider without there being any burden. When providing is spoken of — the government providing national health, or whatever it may be; family credits, or family allowance, or whatever the various names may be — there is always a budget. There is always a source for these things, and that needs to be sufficient. There need to be enough resources to pass them around. When a father provides for the children, again, there needs to be an income; there need to be resources.

So when one thinks about Allah (swt), who has created everybody and is sustaining them — rizq; tarzīq means to sustain, to give them and nurture them and bring them up; to give them sustenance in order to bring them up — the question comes: where is that supply coming from? Is there enough of a supply?

A brief tangent belongs here. Contraception, the muftis say, is makrūh to use in general. It is permissible to use for particular valid reasons, like good tarbiyah of the children: to space them out enough, and so on, so that it does not become a bit overwhelming. One thing which is not permissible, though, is to use contraception out of fear of not being able to provide for the children. Because that is a responsibility: Allah is the Rāziq, Allah is the provider. And that is something… if He is going to allow somebody to come into the world, then He is going to provide for them, and He is in charge of that. Yes, in His wisdom, sometimes some people do not get, and they do perish; and there are droughts in the world, there is poverty in the world. But that is all part of the challenge of this world.

So He does this. He provides without any assistance from anybody, without it being a burden on Him: bi-lā muʾnah, without it being a burden. And the translation here says: without any stores of provision. So it is not like a store, which would diminish. It is something that He is able to do without there being any store of provision. InshāʾAllāh, this is really refining our understanding of our Creator. It helps us to redefine our tawḥīd, when we really understand what tawḥīd means, and how great this Creator is, who is completely independent of everything.