Arabiq Online - Arabic of the Qur'an

Sūra Āl ʿImrān 3:92

The 4th Word in our Qur’anic Arabic Word Series for this month is بِرٌّ  which means ‘righteousness, goodness, integrity’ especially towards our parents, and Allah makes the attainment of بِرّ conditional upon ‘spending’ – إنْفَاق – the word that we discussed yesterday in ayah 92 of Sūra Āl ʿImrān, which today’s juz’ starts with:

لَن تَنَالُوا الْبِرَّ حَتَّىٰ تُنفِقُوا مِمَّا تُحِبُّونَ ۚ وَمَا تُنفِقُوا مِن شَيْءٍ فَإِنَّ اللَّـهَ بِهِ عَلِيمٌ

You will never attain righteousness until you spend out of what you hold dear, and whatever you may spend of anything, Allah indeed knows it.

It’s quite an emphatic statement to say that we will never attain righteousness until we spend out of what we love. So not just the surplus or what we don’t need, but we ourselves cherish. 

Many linguists say that the origin of the word بِرّ  is actually بَرّ  which means ‘a wide expanse of land’. This sheds light on what righteousness is all about: not to wear our halos a little tighter or become more rigid and closed, but to be ample and generous with all that we hold dear: our resources, our time, our love. A truly righteous person must necessarily be as ample and generous as the land that sustains him.