وَإِذَا قِيلَ لَهُمْ أَنفِقُوا مِمَّا رَزَقَكُمُ اللَّهُ قَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَنُطْعِمُ مَن لَّوْ يَشَاءُ اللَّهُ أَطْعَمَهُ إِنْ أَنتُمْ إِلَّا فِي ضَلَالٍ مُّبِينٍ
When they are told, ‘Spend out of what Allah has provided you,’ the faithless say to the faithful, ‘Shall we feed [someone] whom Allah would feed, if He wished? You are only in manifest error.’
Agha Ali Puya Commentary
Commentary on Quran 36:47
[Pooya/Ali Commentary 36:47] When those granted affluence are told to spend what Allah has given them for the benefit of their fellow beings, they laugh and indirectly blame Allah for not being merciful to provide the poor as He has done to the rich. Such people think that what Allah had provided them by His grace and mercy, was earned by them through their own personal merits. Everything, given to any one, is a trust. Those who have possessions and those who are less favoured are on probation and trial. Those apparently less favoured may be really more fortunate because the true value of the worldly possessions, exaggerated by "the man of the world", in fact, is a great burden, and very insignificant in the eyes of Allah compared to the patience and self-reliance man cultivates in himself to earn Allah's pleasure. Very few of those who have large possessions in this world will come out successful from the examination of the day of reckoning.