Al-An'am (The Cattle): (140) Truly those have lost...

Issues in the Verse:

The First Issue: The Almighty previously mentioned their killing of their children and their prohibition of what Allah had provided for them. In this verse, He combines these two matters and clarifies what results from this conduct: loss (Khusrān), foolishness (Safāhah), lack of knowledge, prohibiting what Allah has permitted, fabricating lies against Allah, misguidance (Ḍalāl), and not being guided (Ihtidā'). These are seven matters, and each one is a complete cause for censure.

Regarding the First: Loss (Khusrān): The child is a great blessing from Allah upon the servant. When one strives to eliminate this blessing, they have incurred a tremendous loss. Especially since this elimination warrants severe condemnation in this world and great punishment in the Hereafter.

• Condemnation in this world: People say that he killed his child out of fear that the child would eat his food, and there is no condemnation harsher than this.
• Punishment in the Hereafter: The kinship of birth is one of the greatest causes for love. When this kinship exists, and one proceeds to inflict the greatest harm upon the child, it constitutes the gravest of sins, thus necessitating the greatest forms of punishment.

The Second Type: Foolishness (Safāhah): This refers to blameworthy frivolity. Killing a child is done out of fear of poverty. Although poverty is a harm, killing is a greater harm. Furthermore, this killing is immediate (nājjiz), whereas the poverty feared is merely imagined (maw-hūm). Committing the greatest harm definitively, out of fear of a slight, imagined harm, is undoubtedly foolishness.

The Third Type: His saying, {without knowledge} (bighayri 'ilm): The intent is that this foolishness stems from a lack of knowledge. Ignorance is undoubtedly the greatest of reprehensible acts and ugliness.

The Fourth Type: Prohibiting what Allah has made lawful for them: This is also one of the greatest forms of folly, as one deprives oneself of those benefits and good things, and due to this prohibition, one deserves the greatest forms of torment and punishment.

The Fifth Type: Fabricating lies against Allah: It is well-known that daring to speak against Allah and fabricating falsehoods about Him is the greatest of sins and the most enormous of major sins.

The Sixth Type: Misguidance from the right path regarding the benefits of religion and the advantages of this world.

The Seventh Type: That they were not guided (wa mā kānū muhtadīn): The benefit here is that a person might stray from the truth but then return to guidance. Allah clarifies that they had strayed and never attained guidance at all.

Thus, it is established that Allah has censured those described by killing children and prohibiting what Allah made lawful for them, using these seven attributes which necessitate the greatest forms of condemnation. This represents the utmost emphasis.

7 < { And He is the One Who brought forth gardens, both those with raised trellises and those without, and the date-palms and the crops with differing [kinds of] food, and the olives and the pomegranates, similar and dissimilar. Eat from their fruit when they bear fruit, and give its due on the day of its harvest, and do not be excessive. Indeed, He does not love the excessive.} > 7

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Translation: And He is the One Who brought forth gardens, both those with raised trellises (ma‘rūshāt) and those without (ghayr ma‘rūshāt), and the date-palms and the crops with differing [kinds of] food, and the olives and the pomegranates, similar and dissimilar. Eat from their fruit when they bear fruit, and give its due on the day of its harvest, and do not be excessive. Indeed, He does not love the excessive.