[The Second of Twenty-Two Points]

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

I created not jinn and mankind except that they might worship me. * No sustenance do I require of them, nor do I require that they should feed me. * For God is He Who gives [all] sustenance—Lord of Power—Steadfast [for ever].¹

For a long time these verses worried my mind, since according to many Qur’anic commentaries their apparent meaning did not reflect the Qur’an’s elevated miraculousness. I shall now explain briefly three aspects of their extremely beautiful and exalted meanings, which proceed from the effulgence of the Qur’an.

T h e F i r s t : Sometimes Almighty God attributes to Himself certain states that could pertain to His Prophet, so as to honour and ennoble him. Here also, the verses, “I created you for worship; not to give Me sustenance and feed me,” have this meaning: “My Prophet does not want a wage, recompense, or reward, or to be fed in return for his duty of Prophethood and conveying to you the duties of worship;” they refer to the Noble Prophet (Upon whom be blessings and peace) being given food and sustenance. Otherwise it would be making known something self-evident and clear, and would be inappropriate to the Qur’an’s miraculous eloquence.

T h e S e c o n d A s p e c t : Man is excessively preoccupied with his sustenance. So in order that he should not be deluded into making the obtaining of it a pretext for neglecting worship, nor make it an excuse, the verse says: “You were created for worship. The result of your creation is worship. Winning sustenance is worship of a sort, from the point of view of its being a Divine command. I have undertaken to provide your sustenance and that of your families and animals, my creatures; it pertains to me; you were not created to procure food and sustenance. For I am the Provider. I provide the sustenance of my servants, your dependents. So do not make it an excuse and give up worship!”

If its meaning is not this, it becomes a statement of the obvious, for to provide Almighty God with food and sustenance is self-evidently impossible and obvious. It is an established rule of rhetoric that if the meaning of a sentence is clear and obvious, it is not that meaning which is intended, but a meaning necessitated by it and dependent on it. For eexample, if you say to someone: “You are a hafiz,” it is stating the obvious. The intended meaning is this: “I know that you are a hafiz.” You are informing him because he did not know that you knew.

Thus, as a consequence of this rule, the meaning of the verse, in which the prohibition of giving food to Almighty God is a metaphor, is this: “You were not created in order to produce food for My creatures, which are Mine and the providing of whose sustenance I have undertaken. Your fundamental duty is worship. But to strive to procure sustenance in accordance with My commands is also a sort of worship.”

T h e T h i r d A s p e c t : Since in Sura al-Ikhlas the apparent meaning of

He begets not, nor is He begotten²

is self-evident and obvious, a meaning is intended which is necessitated by that meaning. That is to say, Almighty God states extremely clearly and self-evidently He begets not, nor is He begotten meaning: “Those with a father and mother cannot be gods,” and, “pre-eternal and post-eternal,” with the intention of denying the divinity of Jesus (Upon whom be peace), and Uzayr, and the angels, and stars, and other false gods. And in exactly the same way, in our example too, the verse, “The All-Glorious Provider, your object of worship, does not require sustenance for Himself, you were not created to provide Him with food,” which has the meaning of: “Things with the ability to receive sustenance and food cannot be gods and objects of worship,” meaning: “Beings which are in need of sustenance and being provided for are not worthy of worship.”

S a i d N u r s i

FOOTNOTES

1. Qur’an, 51:56-8.

2. Qur’an, 112:3.