In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful
“By Time! Man is indeed in loss, except those who have faith and do righteous deeds, and enjoin one another to [follow] the truth, and enjoin one another to patience” (Qurʾan 103:1–3).
.
The Essence of Profit
The essence of time is the birth of man, the essence of man is his deeds, and the essence of man's deeds is Surat al-ʿAsr, which has summed up all the Qurʾanic concepts in a concise and precise expression, gathering all virtues and barring all vices, so as to produce the profiting human being in this life.
Surat al-ʿAsr is made up of three verses, each verse expressing an important value (time, man, man's deeds) for forming the profiting human being; it is thus the essence of profit. And the Qurʾanic expression al-ʿasr suits these meanings.
1/ “By Time!” (Qurʾan 103:1): it has been said that what is meant is the era of the Mission; it has been said, the era of the reappearance of the Hujjah; it has been said, the period after noon; and it has been said that it means time (al-dahr), or whatever era you are in. Whether it is this or that, it is an expression of time—the time that affects man and his movement—as indicated by the fact that the surah speaks of man and of his deeds in this world....
And an oath is sworn only by great things—indeed, by things of the utmost greatness—so that the oath has its impact and its effect on the listener. The era, or the time in which we live, is of the utmost importance, because we live in it and perform our deeds during its hours. His saying, the Exalted: “By Time!” (Qurʾan 103:1) has given time great importance only because Allah is the One who swore by it, even if we do not grasp it with our limited minds. The aim of the oath is only to affirm an important truth; so what is that truth which Allah the Exalted wanted to make clear to us, for Allah's oath is not like any oath?
2/ “Man is indeed in loss” (Qurʾan 103:2): man in the abstract, when he is left to proceed within the segments of time written for him, is inevitably a loser; that is, he lives the inevitability of loss by his very nature—and loss is the diminishing of capital—even if he does not commit sins and corruption. This is because the time by which Allah swore, and to which He wanted to draw our attention, is in constant movement that does not stop; so when man remains as he is, time passes him by and he is in diminution,
And here there is a question: which loss is the verse speaking of? The word came unrestricted, without qualification, and the verse that speaks of absolute loss in the Qurʾan is His saying, the Exalted, in Surat al-Tawba: “whose works have failed in this world and the Hereafter; and it is they who are the losers” (Qurʾan 9:69).
And just as man's loss is connected with time, likewise the opposite of loss, which is profit, is connected with making use of time. How?
3/ “except those who have faith and do righteous deeds, and enjoin one another to [follow] the truth, and enjoin one another to patience” (Qurʾan 103:3): this is an exception from the losing human being, and it is the profiting human being, in whom four attributes, clear in this verse, must be present. We shed light on several points:
· Of the four attributes, two are specific to man as an individual movement (faith and doing righteous deeds).
· And two attributes are specific to man as a social movement (enjoining one another to the truth and enjoining one another to patience).
· Faith alone is not enough to form the profiting human being; rather, it must be followed by deeds that indicate that faith. That is why the word “righteous” comes joined to deeds, because it has a connection with faith in Allah, His messengers and His books.
· Work at the social level is of the same importance as man's faith and his work for himself. As we see, Allah the Exalted has divided equally between the individual level and the social level; but the individual level comes first, and is a condition for the success of social work. We find this in His saying, the Exalted: “You are the best nation [ever] brought forth for mankind: you bid what is right and forbid what is wrong” (Qurʾan 3:110): first “You are the best nation” (Qurʾan 3:110) in attributes, then “[ever] brought forth for mankind” (Qurʾan 3:110) to set out into the social arena..
· The profiting human being is the one who looks at himself and his role within that equation as a whole; the four attributes came in a single verse, perhaps to affirm this truth.
· Social work is divided into two parts. The first: (enjoining one another to the truth), which is working to spread the truth and to enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. The second: (enjoining one another to patience), patience upon the truth and patience in enjoining one another to the truth, that is, so that people remain firm upon the truth through repetition and reminding, and so that those working to spread the truth and to fulfill their mission continue. The second part is no less important than the first, and that is why the word “enjoining one another” is repeated in both; He did not say: and enjoin one another to the truth and patience.
Just as one plans for any work in the way of the truth, one must also plan for how it will continue and endure, for “A little that is persisted in is better than much that becomes wearisome”, as in the hadith.
Faith is the goal and the most important of these attributes. Doing righteous deeds plays the role of developing faith and preserving it; social work develops righteous deeds and preserves them, even for the individual himself, because it will create a righteous atmosphere; and working for continuity and patience is only to preserve social work. Consequently, all the deeds return to the person's own faith, to develop it and preserve it, and to bring him out of the circle of loss into the circle of profit. This, then, is the essence of profit.
