"Go Forth, Light or Heavy"

And then Allah (ʿazza wa jall) says:

Allah (ʿazza wa jall) is telling the Companions — and telling us, and telling every Muslim: go forth, whether light or heavy, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the cause of Allah; that is better for you, if you only knew. Infirū khifāfan wa thiqālan: go forth, whether light or heavy. What does light or heavy mean? Al-Qurṭubī mentions the opinions of the scholars of tafsīr: they said young and old; busy or not busy; wealthy or poor — everyone needs to go out. When this ayah was revealed, the Companions viewed it as such a burden: they said that no one has an excuse; everybody has to go out. And that is when Allah (ʿazza wa jall) revealed the ayah:

There is not upon the weak, or upon the ill, or upon those who do not find anything to spend, any discomfort, when they are sincere to Allah and His Messenger; there is not upon the doers of good any cause for blame; and Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. So Allah excused the weak, and the ill, and those who do not find anything to spend; otherwise, everyone else needs to go out.

Abū Qatādah, the knight of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him)^* — he was seen on his horse, and he was such an old man that his eyebrows were covering his eyes, and by then he had gained a lot of weight. So he was told: you are among those who are excused; why are you going out? He said: the sūrah of al-Tawbah has left us no excuse. That was the understanding of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them).

And Allah is saying: go forth, light and heavy. And then Allah says: and strive with your wealth and your lives. Notice here that wealth is mentioned before lives, and that is how it is in every ayah except one ayah in the Qur'an; and that is because fighting consumes money — it just burns it away. That was the case then, and that is the case now: any war effort just swallows up money. And that is why Allah (ʿazza wa jall) in the āyāt of the Qur'an, and the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) in the hadith, emphasised the importance of spending in the way of Allah.

In fact, al-Qurṭubī says that every other charity is multiplied by ten — because the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says that one good deed is multiplied by ten — except when you spend in the path of Allah: then it is equivalent to seven hundred, because of the ayah in Sūrat al-Baqarah that speaks of the grain that multiplies into seven hundred (2:261), and that is when it is spent in the path of Allah. And Ibn Ḥajar says that whenever the path of Allah is mentioned, it usually means, in context, jihād in the path of Allah. And therefore al-Qurṭubī says that every other spending — whether it is for the poor, or the needy, or building a masjid, or whatever — one dollar, or one of whatever currency it is, is multiplied by ten; while when it is for fighting in the path of Allah, one equals seven hundred. And that is to emphasise the importance of spending, because it is such an expensive thing: it just incinerates money.