The Owners of the Garden in Surat al-Qalam: Are You an Owner or a Trustee?

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on July 27, 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

O Allah, we seek refuge in You from the evil of this day, the evil of what is in it, and the evil of what comes after it. Our Lord, set right for us our religion, our worldly life, and our Hereafter, and prepare for us right guidance in our affair, and forgive us our sins and our excesses in our affairs, and make our feet firm, and open for us on this noble day, by Your mercy, Your pardon, and Your gentleness, doors of provision, bounty, and generosity from You, O Most Merciful of the merciful.

And now, Sūrat al-Qalam is a mighty, inspiring sūrah; it awakens in a person a living conscience with which he deals with reality and life.

Where Is Your Garden?

The story told in the blessed sūrah: ﴿إِنَّا بَلَوْنَاهُمْ كَمَا بَلَوْنَا أَصْحَابَ الْجَنَّةِ﴾ ("Indeed, We have tried them as We tried the owners of the garden") teaches us at its beginning that every owner of wealth is tested by what he has, and every owner of a garden is tested by his garden. So where is your garden? Where is the garden in which you are? Or perhaps you do not count yourself an owner of a garden?

A garden may be, for one of us, a huge capital; for another, a capital of knowledge in his mind that equals a great fortune; and for a third, a clan, family, and relatives who are worth more to him than all the money. We give the example with numbers, but the matter is broader. My garden may be the covering of Allah in which I live, that He inspired me with concealment, so I am covered in this world. And your garden may be people, and it may be money or position, and it may be ability, intellect, intelligence, resourcefulness, and mastery. So where is your garden, and on what do you spend it? This is a question we need to think about very deeply.

The First Affliction: Feeling Ownership

The matter comes down to this: they saved the money for themselves alone, and said: no one will take any of it, and in doing so they departed from the way of their father. And the dividing line in the case is the aspiration to complete, total ownership, and the person's feeling that he is the one who makes the decision. This is a point on which the owners of the garden agree with the disbelievers whose discussion will come afterward. So what happened with them? They felt that they were the owners of the financial power in their hands, so they wanted to take a unilateral decision about how this money would be divided: instead of its being distributed in three parts, they wanted it directed in one direction only.

And feeling ownership apart from Allah, glory be to Him and exalted, makes you begin to take decisions as the one who makes the decision, and not as the One who placed the trust in your hands. So the first question you should ask: Am I an owner or a trustee? If I am a trustee over what the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, has entrusted to me, then I am entrusted with the gathering and with the depositing. From where do I obtain my provision, my money, and my position, and where do I deposit it? But to say: I take the decision, I am the owner of the money, here the wrong equation comes in.

The Scene of the Oath and the Scheming

And the scene presented is very terrifying, glory be to Allah! Imagine them sitting making a pact and swearing: ﴿إِذْ أَقْسَمُوا لَيَصْرِمُنَّهَا مُصْبِحِينَ﴾ ("When they swore to harvest it in the morning").^[1] And "yaṣrim" means that he will take everything. And it is related in this connection: «إنّ الدنيا قد آذنت بصُرمٍ وولّت حَذّاء، ولم يبقَ منها إلا صُبابة كصُبابة الإناء يتصابّها صاحبها» ("The world has announced its departure and has turned back swiftly, and nothing remains of it but a remnant like the remnant in a vessel, which its owner sips").^[2] That is a saying that needs explanation, but what is meant here is that "yaṣrim" means to take everything and leave nothing in it for anyone at all.

And we know this in farming: you gather the cotton, for example, and after things quiet down and the people go, someone comes and picks up what is left. And among you in Palestine, after they harvest the olives, the girls go out and gather what remains. But these people leave nothing, even what can be benefited from, such as firewood or other things; they gather everything and leave nothing behind ﴿مُصْبِحِينَ﴾ ("in the morning"), thinking that they are outrunning time so that no one will catch up with them.

Then There Came Upon It a Visitor

Then what is the verse after it? ﴿فَطَافَ عَلَيْهَا طَائِفٌ مِّن رَّبِّكَ وَهُمْ نَائِمُونَ﴾ ("Then there came upon it a visitation from your Lord while they were asleep").^[3] We are now speaking of young men sitting at home as if at a family conference: what shall we do with the money? How do we gather it? Where do we go? Let no one take from it a qirsh, or a millīm, or a dinar, or a dirham. They say: let us sleep early so that we wake up very early. But Allah has soldiers working in another field and at another time, at night. At the time when you intend to deprive someone of something, Allah, blessed and exalted, arranges something else for that person. And at the time when you want to prevent people, the Lord of the worlds arranges for you a provision you did not reckon and did not expect. Glory be to the One who directs affairs!

So while you say: O Lord, from where do I get such-and-such? Provide for me, open for me the doors of good, heal such-and-such, there are soldiers of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, working in the universe so that Allah arranges for you through them. So let not the servant despair before Allah over the paucity of his provision, and let no one rejoice over the abundance of what is in his hands, for giving is from Allah and taking is from Allah. And our Lord, glory be to Him, extends provision to whom He wills and restricts it, and takes back whenever He wills from the hand of His servants, for He is the owner of the dominion. Imagine you rented a house or an apartment, then the owner said to you at the time he wants: Please, leave.

Conclusion

So the point is that the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, warned us against feeling that we are owners of dominion, and taught us that what is in our hands is a trust: we gather it from where He wants for us, and we place it again where He wants for us, so gain insight into what lies between. I will not prolong it for you.

I ask Allah, blessed and exalted, to bless us in this noble day, and to provide us in it from His bounty with lawful, good provision, blessed in it, and to let us enjoy our hearing, our sight, and our strength as long as He keeps us alive, and to bless us in what He has placed in our hands, and we seek refuge in Allah, Mighty and Majestic, from being stripped after being given, and from being cut off after being supplied, glory be to Him.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Qalam, verse 17; the speaker recited after it «ولا يستثنون» ("and they make no exception"), which is from verse 18, and it was not recorded in the body. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: This wording is known, as far as we know, from the sermon of ʿUtba ibn Ghazwān, may Allah be pleased with him, in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, and the speaker attributed it to the Prophet ﷺ, so its attribution should be checked before publication. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Qalam, verse 19.