Huzoor, in the Holy Qur’an, in Surah A’raf, there is a verse Kuzil afw wa murbil urfay, su’adish anil jahileen Yes Then Allah says in Surah Baqarah wa yasalunaka maada yunfiquna kulil afw Could you kindly explain the meaning of afw, please? maada yunfiquna, yunfiquna nai? yunfiquna, yes kulil afw Yes, please First read the first verse where the word afw is used It is used in a different meaning.
Yes, this one Kuzil afw wa murbil urfay, wa yasalunaka maada yunfiquna kulil afw In the first instance, the word afw is used to ignore afa’anhu means he ignored him and this is why we ask, beg Allah for afw that you overlook or ignore our sins You know sometimes you see some, catch someone doing something wrong and you are embarrassed and you turn your sight to the other side You want to ignore it You don’t want to notice it So big people sometimes ignore the faults of the small ones and this is a sign of their greatness and sometimes they catch them They reprimand them, they bring them to books This is also a sign of their greatness.
So these two characteristics are exhibited in various moods by the kings and other mighty people. So Allah also exhibits these two characteristics and here afw is advised to answer Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Being a true representative of Allah’s attributes he is also admonished and advised that he should use this attribute of God as well When people talk foul language, address him wrongly, abuse him then he should sometimes use this afw as if he has not heard them Just pass by gently.
In another place the Holy Quran tells us That is also an expression of afw Alright, we have nothing to do with this Assalamu alaikum, we are leaving So the other afw which you have mentioned in the other verse that means what is left out after essential fundamental spending Afw here means what is left out after meeting your ordinary necessities of life So yassaluna kamadha yunfiqoon literally means O Prophet peace be upon him They ask you what they should spend in the cause of Allah Qul lafu Tell them that whatever is left after meeting your daily requirements of life of that you should spend That is to say you should not put I mean generally speaking.
I mean this is a general rule that you should not sacrifice your daily subsistence You should not sacrifice your daily requirements of food and clothing and things and spend only what is left out after these essentials This is why Hazrat Musleh Maud R.A when he needed so much money for the spread of Islam in the world he founded Tariq-e-Jadeed and reminded every Ahmadi to bring down his daily expenditure to the barest minimum and he advised austerity of sometimes extreme measures.
This is why in the conditions 19 conditions laid down by him he expected the Jamaat to eat one food to wear the simplest clothes he expected ladies not to wear ornaments and spend nothing by way of luxury whatsoever Those were the times when the Jamaat was passing through very difficult financial times Those were the times when the Jamaat was passing through such difficult financial I mean they were facing such financial problems as it was not able to pay Jamaat workers their wages for sometimes 6 months continuously.
You know there was a time when at times the shopkeepers of Qadian complained to Hazrat Musleh Maud and said that the arrears are now running into months sometimes 6 months and the workers we know they are not dishonest people but they have not paid anything by the Jamaat How can they pay us our dues? The result is that we have nothing left now with which we could go out and buy things for replenishing our stores.
So under those hard conditions Tariq-e-Jadid was issued with the result that every penny that an Ahmadi could scrape was scraped in the cause of Allah This is what it means that you spend all that is left from your necessities Now the word necessity here can acquire various levels In ordinary conditions the threshold may be quite high but under certain conditions it can lower down to that situation which I am just describing to you where just barely living means necessity of life and what is left over and above that should be spent in the cause of Allah.
So at the time of the Prophet we have also witnessed various phases In some phases the standard of the barest necessity described by the Prophet was put at a very low threshold and at other times the Muslims were enjoying life like other human beings they were eating the best things of life they were dressing well and yet it was not considered against this injunction of the Holy Quran So the word Afr would be translated variously according to the various situations You all right?
