Surat al-Kawthar

In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful
“Indeed We have given you abundance. So pray to your Lord, and sacrifice [the sacrificial camel]. Indeed it is your enemy who is without posterity.” (Qurʾan 108:1–3)
The occasion of the surah's revelation: it was revealed when al-ʿAs ibn Waʾil described the Messenger (s) as “al-abtar”, after his son al-Qasim, and then ʿAbd Allah, had died.
The meanings of the words: (al-kawthar): abundant good / (wa-nhar): and raise your hands to your throat when saying the takbir in prayer / (shaniʾak): the one who hates you / (al-abtar): the one cut off from progeny. (1) An endless bounty: .
Every act of giving must include the following three elements: the giver, the one given to, and the gift. If one element of them is missing, it will not be a real act of giving; rather, it will be an act of pretense or of deception. Allah the Exalted gave our noble Messenger al-Kawthar (among whose basic meanings are the progeny and descendants of the Messenger (s)); this is a real act of giving, which we find clear and realized when the Messenger (s) was blessed with Fatimah (a), so that the pure progeny would descend from her. In the Qurʾanic expression, (Indeed We) refers to the Giver, who is Allah the Exalted; the kāf of “you” in (We have given you) refers to the one given to, who is the Messenger (s); and (abundance) refers to the gift.
But this act is not like other givings; rather, it is “an endless bounty” (Qurʾan 11:108) and uninterrupted. Allah the Exalted has given the like of this giving to the believers in the Hereafter, but He, Almighty, has not given it to anyone in this world except our noble Messenger and his Ahl al-Bayt (a), in this surah. We discern this from the form (al-kawthar), which denotes good whose nature is abundance and continuity, and also from the noble surah's setting against this blessing the expression (al-abtar), which is the one whose posterity and progeny are cut off. And here we now see that the progeny of the Messenger (s) is the progeny that has not been cut off; rather, it is the progeny that increases day after day, until it has become the largest progeny on the face of the earth. (According to some estimates, it has reached more than twenty million people.)
There is another feature of this divine giving: it is not a giving specific to the person of the Messenger (s); rather, it extends beyond him to his Ahl al-Bayt and to all the believers. When Allah gives the star light and adornment, that is a giving to us as well, because we reap guidance from this giving. The Exalted said: “the landmarks [as well]—and by the stars they are guided” (Qurʾan 16:16). The noble Messenger is a light, and the giving of light as an unceasing light is only for our guidance until the Day of Resurrection, without interruption.
This equation, with its distinctive elements, has formed a lasting (divine blessing). So what is our duty toward blessings?
(2) The Adornment of Thanksgiving:
Every divine blessing needs thanksgiving so that we value it and preserve it from vanishing. Thanksgiving has come in the verses of the Wise Reminder coupled with blessings; the Exalted said: “and give thanks for Allah’s blessing” (Qurʾan 16:114). As for the manner of thanksgiving, what is understood from the narrations is that it has two manners. The first: thanksgiving by recognition, which is that you recognize that this blessing is from Allah the Exalted and that it is He who bestowed it upon you. In the hadith: Allah revealed to David (a): “O David, thank Me.” He said: “How can I thank You, when thanksgiving is from Your blessing, for which You deserve thanks?” Allah, Majestic is His Majesty, said: “O David, I am pleased with this acknowledgment from you as thanks.”
This manner of thanksgiving is realized in the first verse, in His saying: “Indeed We have given you” (Qurʾan 108:1), through recognizing that the blessing is from Him, the Exalted.
As for the second manner of thanksgiving, it is by performing thanksgiving: either by saying “Thanks be to Allah”, or by the two prostrations of thanks, or by the prayer of thanks, and the like; and prayer is a gathering of all those tools. That is why the verse “So pray to your Lord” (Qurʾan 108:2) came as an expression of thanksgiving. And in His saying, the Exalted: (wa-nhar)—which is raising the hands to the throat when saying the takbir in prayer—there is an adornment of thanksgiving and the conferring of an aesthetic taste and a refined courtesy. For thanksgiving, if it is curtailed and devoid of any grace and courtesy, may not deliver its message or achieve its aim. So al-nahr in the prayer of thanks is that important aspect; it is the adornment of thanksgiving. In the hadith: “Everything has an adornment, and the adornment of prayer is raising the hands to the throat when saying the takbir.”
(3) Ill feeling for a people should never lead you to be unfair:
An objective judgment that seeks what is right in all of life's issues must keep away from psychological residues and the grudges one harbors toward one of the two parties to the issue on which the judgment will be issued, so that this does not drive one to prejudice and consequently to a wrong conclusion. In His saying, the Exalted: “Indeed it is your enemy who is without posterity” (Qurʾan 108:3), there is a statement of the reason that led al-ʿAs ibn Waʾil to describe the Messenger (s) with this description, for the shaniʾ is the one who hates. And the Exalted said in Surat al-Maʾida: “and ill feeling for a people should never lead you to be unfair. Be fair; that is nearer to Godwariness” (Qurʾan 5:8). And this one who dares against the Messenger of Allah (s) in this way is indeed (al-abtar), the one cut off from all good, as a recompense for what his hands have committed.
Insights for Life
1/ The progeny of the Messenger of Allah (s) falls within the circle of goodness and distinctive divine blessings, so we must respect it and keep faith with the Messenger in his offspring.
2/ We must take care with our thanks to Allah and to others; so let our thanks be beautiful and courteous, in appreciation of the blessing and of the Bestower of blessings.
3/ Psychological residues and grudges are among the factors that lead to error in ideas and in judgment, so we must free ourselves of them in the process of thinking and in judging anything.
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