The Bringer of Benefit

And if Allah should touch you with adversity, there is no remover of it except Him; and if He touches you with good, then He has power over all things.

6:17 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Given identically at Name 91. No word of n-f-ʻ: the verse answers bi-ḍurr, adversity, with bi-khayr, good, and Allah is the one who touches with both. 10:107, carried at Name 91, opens with the same clause. Aṭ-Ṭabarī closes his reading with the One able to benefit you and to harm you, set against gods too abased to draw benefit to themselves or to any other and to push harm from themselves or from any other. As-Saʻdī names Allah an-nāfiʻ aḍ-ḍārr at this verse and argues the worship from it: the One alone in benefiting and in harming is the One alone to be worshipped. Al-Qurṭubī and al-Baghawī both bring at this verse the counsel to Ibn ʻAbbās, in al-Baghawī’s wording that were the creation to strive to benefit him with what Allah had not decreed for him they could not do it. Aṭ-Ṭabarī glosses the harm as hardship in your world, scantiness in your living and straitness in it, and the good as ease in living, breadth in provision and abundance of wealth. Ibn Kathīr opens on the Name’s own pair, that Allah owns the harm and the benefit and disposes of His creation as He wills, with none to follow His judgement and none to turn back His decree. Al-Qurṭubī notes first that touching and removing are of the attributes of bodies and stand here by a widening of the words. Ibn ʻĀshūr answers the question why a verse of this Name carries no word of its root: harm is the state that pains a person and belongs to evil, benefit is its opposite and belongs to good, and the good word is set against the harm word by the wider of the two, so that the harm meant is the wider as well, as though it read if He touches you with harm and evil and if He touches you with benefit and good; he names the figure that leaves each half to be supplied from the other, and cites Ibn ʻAṭiyyah, that harm stands here in the place of evil. The counsel to the boy behind him is given by both readers in fuller form than the portion printed: al-Qurṭubī’s opening offers him words by which Allah will benefit him, which puts Allah where the report of the rain puts Him, as the one who benefits, and he calls the report sound and says at-Tirmidhī brought it out and that his own wording is fuller; al-Baghawī’s wording keeps both verbs, that the creation striving to benefit or to harm could do neither beyond what was decreed, where al-Qurṭubī’s keeps the harm side only.

And do not invoke, besides Allah, that which neither benefits you nor harms you.

10:106 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Yanfaʻuka, benefits you, before yaḍurruka, harms you, of what is called on besides Allah, as in 6:71, 10:18, 21:66, 22:12, 22:13, 25:55 and 26:73. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: the gods and idols; do not worship them hoping for their benefit or fearing their harm, for they neither benefit nor harm. As-Saʻdī: a description of every created thing, that it neither benefits nor harms; the One who benefits and harms is Allah. Al-Qurṭubī and al-Baghawī gloss the two verbs by what the worshipper does: it does not benefit you if you worship or obey it, and does not harm you if you disobey it; al-Qurṭubī adds that the address is given to one and meant for others, and both read the wrongdoers of the next clause as those who put worship where it does not belong, and al-Baghawī as those who harm themselves by it. Ibn ʻĀshūr reads the clause as the reason the prohibition rests on, since calling on the like of these is not a thing a man of sense sets out to do, and takes the supposing of it as a warning that the act would be wrongdoing even in the noblest of creatures. Ibn Kathīr: harm and benefit belong to Allah alone and to no partner with Him, and that is why worship is His alone. Aṭ-Ṭabarī widens the denial to both abodes: a thing that does not benefit you in this world nor in the next, and does not harm you in your religion nor in your world. As-Saʻdī ends where Ibn ʻĀshūr ends, on the same supposal, that if the best of creation would be among the wrongdoers were he to call on another beside Allah then what of anyone else, and he names the wrongdoing itself as the association it is. Ibn Kathīr reads the passage as one and brings to it the challenge that opens it, that the gods be called and let them harm him, since they neither harm nor benefit, and the one in whose hand harm and benefit are is Allah alone.

Say: Then who could prevent Allah at all, if He intended for you harm, or intended for you benefit?

48:11 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Ḍarran and nafʻan, both intended by Allah, in the answer given to the Bedouins who stayed behind and asked for forgiveness. Of the root’s forty-nine verses it is the only one in which Allah is the one who intends benefit. Name 91 carries the verse identically, with al-Baghawī’s report of the reading. Aṭ-Ṭabarī and al-Qurṭubī decide it the same way and for the same reason: aṭ-Ṭabarī records both readings of the harm word, prefers the short a in this place, and gives as his ground the benefit word standing beside it, since it is known that the opposite of benefit is harm; al-Qurṭubī reports that preference from Abū ʻUbayd and Abū Ḥātim in the same terms and gives the other reading as the noun for what befalls a man of wasting and bad state. Aṭ-Ṭabarī glosses the benefit intended as their property made to increase and their people set right for them, al-Qurṭubī as victory and spoils; both he and al-Baghawī say the men had reckoned that hanging back would push harm from them and hasten benefit to them. Ibn ʻĀshūr: the usage would have named harm alone, and benefit is named beside it to complete the case, so that if He intended them benefit He benefited them and if He intended them harm He harmed them. As-Saʻdī reads their asking for forgiveness as a thing that would have been of benefit to them had their hearts matched their tongues. Ibn Kathīr takes their asking as a word said not out of belief but by way of shielding themselves and humouring, and gives the answer at its plainest, that none can turn back what He has intended for them. Aṭ-Ṭabarī names the harm as well as the benefit — their destruction, or the destruction of their wealth and their families — and carries the occasion from Ibn Isḥāq and from Mujāhid, who names the tribes of the town that were called out and hung back and pleaded their business. Al-Qurṭubī names those tribes with Mujāhid and Ibn ʻAbbās, gives Ibn ʻAbbās’s gloss of the harm word as defeat, notes that the two readers take the vowel u here and in no other place, and records the view that the two forms are one meaning in two dialects, as the two forms of poverty are and the two of weakness. His copy dates the setting out to the year of the conquest where aṭ-Ṭabarī and al-Baghawī date it to the lesser pilgrimage of al-Ḥudaybiyah, though the rest of his account, the consecration for the lesser pilgrimage and the driving of the offering, is the al-Ḥudaybiyah one. Al-Baghawī names the benefit they had reckoned on, safety in themselves and in their wealth. Ibn ʻĀshūr makes the owning here power and ability, lets the harm word stand for the thing that harms as the word for creating stands for the thing created, holds the two readings one in meaning against aṭ-Ṭabarī’s preference, and sends the reader to 7:188 on this same page for the like of it; and he reads their hanging back as the harm that did fall on them, since it cost them the pledge under the tree and the expedition to Khaybar after it.

Say: I hold not for myself the power of benefit or harm, except what Allah has willed.

7:188 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Nafʻan wa-lā ḍarran: the Prophet ﷺ commanded to say that he holds no power of benefit or harm for himself except what Allah has willed. 10:49, carried at Names 71 and 72, says it with harm first; 5:76, 13:16, 20:89 and 25:3 deny the same power to what is worshipped besides Allah. Ibn ʻĀshūr answers the order: benefit is put first here because benefit is what a person most wants, and the order is reversed at 5:76 because the purpose there is to make what they worship small, so that its anger need not be feared; he adds that harm is joined to benefit although no one seeks his own harm, because the two together cover every state a person can be in, as evening and morning do, and that the exception is best taken as joined, meaning except what Allah wills to give him power over by teaching him and enabling him for it. Aṭ-Ṭabarī reads the exception the same way: he cannot draw benefit to himself or push away harm that befalls him, except what Allah wills that he hold of that, by strengthening him for it and helping him; and he records from Ibn Jurayj and Mujāhid that the benefit and harm here are guidance and misguidance. Al-Baghawī gives the occasion from Ibn ʻAbbās, that the people of Makkah asked why his Lord did not tell him of a cheap price before it rose so that he might buy and profit by it, and of land about to go barren so that he might leave it. As-Saʻdī: he is poor and himself governed, no good reaches him but from Allah, and none is benefited whom Allah has not benefited. The entry divides over what the good is that he would have had much of. Aṭ-Ṭabarī carries two answers and a third view: from Ibn Jurayj and Mujāhid, that he would have done much righteous work had he known when he would die; from Ibn Zayd, that he would have shunned the evil to come and guarded against it; and from others, that he would have laid up in the year of plenty against the year of drought and known the dear from the cheap. Ibn Kathīr weighs the first and will not take it, since the work was constant and of one pattern and was kept to once done, so that the saying holds only if the guiding of others is meant; he prefers aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk from Ibn ʻAbbās, that the good is wealth, that he would have known what he would profit by and sold nothing without profit in it, and that the evil which would then not have touched him is poverty — which is the answer the occasion al-Baghawī reports calls for, and al-Baghawī glosses the two words of the root in its terms, the drawing of benefit by profit and the pushing of harm by leaving the land. Al-Qurṭubī gathers five answers and takes them all, and glosses the two words as drawing good to oneself and pushing evil from it. Ibn ʻĀshūr makes the owning here ability and enablement and holds that it is meant to take in the knowledge of benefit and harm as well, since the place of the verse is the denial of knowledge of the unseen, and it is knowledge of a thing that turns a person to doing it; the denial of owning benefit or harm is set first as the ground of that denial, because what people want the unseen for is to hasten to the good that is coming by readying its causes, and to keep clear of where harm falls; and he takes the occasion from al-Baghawī’s own book, so that the two questions, the hour and the price, are answered in one. As-Saʻdī closes on what this Name’s benefit is when it is spoken of a servant: nothing of the matter is in his hand, and his benefit is that he benefits whoever accepts what he was sent with, a benefit beyond that of fathers and mothers, of friends and of brothers.

The Day when neither wealth nor children will benefit — except one who comes to Allah with a sound heart.

26:88–89 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

The close of Ibrāhīm’s prayer (26:83–89). Aṭ-Ṭabarī: wealth and sons will not benefit the one who disbelieved by warding off Allah’s punishment, and on that Day nothing benefits but the sound heart, sound from doubt in the oneness of Allah and in the resurrection. As-Saʻdī: this is what benefits him with You. One of twelve verses of the root on what will not benefit when the Day or the punishment comes. Al-Qurṭubī reads the sons as the helpers generally, since if a son does not benefit then when will another, and notes that fathers and sons are what the passage has just been speaking of; the heart is named on its own because when it is sound the limbs are sound with it, and he carries Qatādah with others for the soundness being from doubt and from associating others with Allah. Ibn ʻĀshūr reads the grammar to the same end: the object of the verb is left unsaid so that it may be general, so that nothing a person brings to defend himself benefits anyone that Day, and the exception is taken from the object and not from the subject, since the one who comes with a sound heart is the benefited one and his sound heart is the cause the benefit comes by, which makes him at once the benefiter and the benefited. Wealth and sons are named, he adds, because a man defended himself either by ransom or by his sons, so that the denial of benefit to everything else follows the more surely. The entry turns almost wholly on the sound heart. Aṭ-Ṭabarī names his transmitters: Muḥammad, that a man know Allah is true, that the Hour is coming and that Allah raises those in the graves; Mujāhid, that there is no doubt in it; Qatādah, sound from association; Ibn Zayd, sound from association, and as for sins no one is sound of them; and aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk, that it is the pure one. Ibn Kathīr gives the denial its measure — a man’s wealth does not shield him from the punishment though he ransom himself with the earth full of gold, nor his sons though he ransom himself with everyone on earth, and nothing benefits that Day but faith in Allah, sincerity of religion to Him and disavowal of association — and he names the Muḥammad of aṭ-Ṭabarī’s chain as Ibn Sīrīn. Al-Baghawī calls the soundness from association and from doubt the saying of most of the commentators, and adds two more: Saʻīd ibn al-Musayyab, that the sound heart is the healthy one and is the believer’s, since the heart of the disbeliever and of the hypocrite is diseased; and a sentence his copy gives to Ibn ʻUthmān an-Naysābūrī, that it is the heart empty of innovation and at rest upon the sunnah — the same sentence Ibn Kathīr gives to Abū ʻUthmān an-Naysābūrī and al-Qurṭubī to Abū ʻUthmān as-Sayyārī, three copies and three names for one saying. Al-Qurṭubī sets out two constructions of the exception, from the disbelievers so that a man’s wealth and sons do not benefit him, or from a kind other than the one named so that the one who comes with a sound heart is benefited by the soundness of his heart; he adds al-Ḥasan, sound from the affliction of wealth and of sons, which is soundness from the very two things the verse denies, and al-Junayd, that the word in the language is said of one stung, so that it is a heart stung with the fear of Allah; and he chooses aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk’s answer as the one whose generality gathers the scattered sayings, pure of the blameworthy qualities and described by the beautiful ones. As-Saʻdī defines it at length: sound from association, from doubt, from the love of evil and from persisting in innovation and in sins, and from that soundness it follows that it is described by their opposites, sincerity and knowledge and certainty and the love of good, and that its owner’s will and love follow the love of Allah. Ibn ʻĀshūr says that none of the early commentators counted this verse among the ambiguous in meaning, and that what was hard for the later ones was only the way of drawing the plain sense out of the parts of the construction; he faults the Kashshāf for offering no possibility that escapes supposing an ellipsis, and works it instead so that the object of the verb is left unsaid for generality and the exception is taken from that object, the excepted one being benefited and not benefiting, while the sound heart, being the cause the benefit comes by, makes him the benefiter of himself as well, which he calls a kind of stripping; and the exception is joined, not disjoined, since making it disjoined does not remove the difficulty. He adds that the restriction to wealth and sons follows the tribes’ own ways of defence, wealth being the means of ransom and sons the likeliest to be called on for their father, so that the denial of benefit to everything else follows the more surely and the speech is of the kind that lets one half stand for the whole; and that the denial of the benefit of wealth holds even if there be no wealth at all that Day, as a negative holds when its subject is denied.

Allah will say: This is the Day when the truthful will benefit from their truthfulness.

5:119 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Yanfaʻu in Allah’s own words on the Day, after ʻĪsā’s answer (5:116–118): the truthful will benefit from their truthfulness. Against the twelve verses of the root on what will not benefit then, it names what will. Aṭ-Ṭabarī prefers the reading that sets the word for day in the accusative, and paraphrases the sentence as the beneficial word, or the beneficial truthfulness, on a Day when the truthful are benefited by the truthfulness they kept in the world; he cites as-Suddī, who takes these words as the break from the speech of ʻĪsā and as Allah’s own speech to His servants on the Day. Ibn Kathīr, from aḍ-Ḍaḥḥāk from Ibn ʻAbbās: the Day on which those who declared His oneness are benefited by their declaring it. Al-Qurṭubī gives two readings of whose truthfulness is meant, their truthfulness in the world, since truthfulness begun in the Hereafter does not benefit, or their truthfulness in the bearing of witness there; al-Baghawī takes the first, truthfulness in the world benefiting in the Hereafter. Ibn ʻĀshūr keeps both, the word covering all who held to truthfulness and the benefit of either kind appearing that Day, of the worldly kind its reward and of what is spoken there the pleasure of Allah; and he adds that in this world the truth can bring harm on the one who speaks it, while that Day is the day of truth. The entry is a grammarians’ dispute over the word for day and a doctrine of what truthfulness benefits. Aṭ-Ṭabarī supplies the answer in this Name’s own participle: Allah answered ʻĪsā with this beneficial word, or this beneficial truthfulness, on a day when the truthful are benefited by their truthfulness, the day being the time of the beneficial word; and he gives the rule the readers went by, that the Arabs let the words for day and for night take their case from what follows them, with a line of an-Nābighah for it. Al-Qurṭubī reports the dispute at length and it runs against aṭ-Ṭabarī’s choice: the raised reading is the clear one; of the other, al-Mubarrad is reported as holding it not permissible and az-Zajjāj as holding it permissible, while al-Kisāʼī and al-Farrāʼ build the word because it is annexed to other than a noun, which az-Zajjāj answers by saying the Basrans do not allow that when the adverb is annexed to a verb in the present; and a third reading, with the noun made indefinite, is al-Aʻmash’s. The reader who takes the other reading is named Nāfiʻ, which is this Name’s own participle and a coincidence of names only. Al-Qurṭubī divides the worldly truthfulness in two, truthfulness in working for Allah or the leaving off of lying about Him and about His messengers, and says that although it is of benefit on every day its benefit shows on that one, because the requital falls there. Ibn ʻĀshūr settles the grammar the other way and calls it the verified position, that annexation to a verbal sentence permits the building, and that where the verb is in the present both the building and the full inflection are allowed. He reads the generality of the truthful as taking in both the truthfulness spoken that Day and the truthfulness lived in the world, so that the benefit of both appears then, and says there is no perplexity in the verse at all; and he sets out what the benefit is, that the Day is the day of truth, so that truthfulness, being good, can have none but a good effect there, unlike the world, where truth may draw harm on the one who speaks it by people’s twisting of things, or by his being taken to task for what none would have learned had he not told it, and he instances Kaʻb ibn Mālik, tried in truthfulness and then shown the goodness of its outcome. He divides it once more: where the report is of a good deed the teller did, the truthfulness is good and the thing told is good, so the benefit is unmixed and there are two rewards; where the report is of an ugly one, the truthfulness adds no ugliness, since the deed was ugly whether told or not, and the teller is benefited still, some of the punishment lightened by it. Al-Baghawī adds what the lie would have come to, that Allah would have sealed their mouths and their own limbs would have spoken and they would be disgraced, and records the view that the truthful here are the prophets. As-Saʻdī makes them those whose deeds and words and intentions stood straight, and sets this Name’s own opposite against them, that the liars will find the harm of their lying and of their fabricating and the fruit of their corrupt works. Ibn Kathīr reads the whole as the answer given to ʻĪsā over his disavowal and his referring the will concerning them to his Lord, and the entry closes on the report that the last sūrah sent down was this one.

And the grazing livestock He has created for you; in them is warmth and benefits, and from them you eat.

16:5 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Manāfiʻ, benefits, in livestock Allah created for you. Six of the eight verses with manāfiʻ are of livestock and the pilgrimage (16:5, 22:28, 22:33, 23:21, 36:73, 40:80); the others are of wine and gambling (2:219, carried at Name 82) and of iron (57:25, carried at Name 53). Ibn ʻĀshūr reads the benefits as the general joined to the particular, the warmth being named on its own because it is the thing least likely to come to mind, and takes the close of the passage as the ground of the creating: they were created for these benefits. Al-Qurṭubī says the eating is given a clause of its own because it is the greatest of the benefits, and cites al-Jawharī that the word rendered warmth covers also the offspring of the camels, their milk and what is had from them. Aṭ-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr carry the same reports of what the benefits are: Ibn ʻAbbās gives clothing for the warmth and food and drink for the benefits, and in another report the offspring of every beast; Mujāhid gives woven clothing, and riding, milk and meat; Qatādah gives clothing, benefit and provision for the road. The six agree on the list and differ on its edges. Aṭ-Ṭabarī sets the verse among the proofs and glosses it himself — clothing from their wool and fur and hair by which you keep warm, benefits from their milk, and their backs that you ride — and he adds Ibn Zayd, that the warmth is the coverlets Allah made from them, and a second report from Ibn ʻAbbās that it is benefits and things to eat. Al-Baghawī gives the same division and lists the benefits as offspring, milk, riding and carrying. As-Saʻdī widens the list further, to hides, and to bedding and tents beside clothing, and reads the opening as saying they were made for your sake and for the sake of your benefits and your interests. Al-Qurṭubī takes the word for warmth lexically at length: al-Jawharī’s definition of it is built on this Name’s own root, the offspring of the camels and their milk and what is benefited from them; the many-camelled herd is called by the same word because they warm one another with their breath; and his Mujāhid adds clarified butter to the riding and carrying and milk and meat that the other copies give. He draws from the verse the lawfulness of wearing wool and carries Ibn al-ʻArabī on it. Ibn Kathīr frames it as a favour conferred, of interests and benefits, and gathers four other passages of the same argument. Ibn ʻĀshūr allows two constructions of the opening, the livestock coupled to the human being of the verse before, so that they too are made from a drop and the wonder is one, or a fresh sentence with a verb supplied; on the first the parallel is complete, reflection first and the reproach for ingratitude second. The reproach he states plainly: they denied the favour of the creating by assigning part of the offspring to their partners and a share to Allah, and no ingratitude is greater than seeking nearness by created things to other than the one who created them. He makes the word for warmth a noun for what one is warmed by, the woven thing set as though contained in the animal because the animal is the material of the weaving; and he marks off the eating from the rest because it is taken from their very selves and not from what they yield.

Then has there not been a city that believed so its faith benefited it, except the people of Yūnus? When they believed, We removed from them the punishment of disgrace in worldly life and gave them enjoyment for a time.

10:98 (Qurʼan, opens quran.com)

Fa-nafaʻahā īmānuhā, a town whose faith benefited it: the people of Yūnus are the ones named, and when they believed Allah removed from them the punishment of disgrace. Aṭ-Ṭabarī: no town believed at the sight of the punishment so that its faith benefited it then, as the faith of Pharaoh did not benefit him when the drowning overtook him, and the people of Yūnus alone, of all the towns, were benefited by their faith after the punishment had come down; he carries Qatādah’s telling, that when they lost the one sent to them and thought the punishment near, Allah cast repentance into their hearts, and they put on sackcloth, parted every beast from its young and cried out to Him for forty nights. Al-Qurṭubī prefers az-Zajjāj: the punishment did not befall them, they saw only the sign that indicates it, and had they seen the punishment itself their faith would not have benefited them, as repentance is accepted of a servant until the death rattle is in his throat. Al-Baghawī takes the exception as disjunctive and names their town in the land of Mosul. As-Saʻdī: faith under compulsion is not faith in truth, and that is why it does not benefit. Ibn ʻĀshūr reads the people of Makkah at the conquest as being in the like case, hastening to faith before they were taken. The entry is a dispute over how far this town’s benefit reached and whether it was an exception at all. Aṭ-Ṭabarī grounds the accusative on the exception being of another kind than what it is taken from, with an-Nābighah’s line for it, and records Ubayy’s reading; and it is he, as well as al-Baghawī, who names Nīnawā of the land of Mosul. He gathers the tellings: Ibn ʻAbbās, that the punishment had come down until two thirds of a mile stood between them and it; Saʻīd ibn Jubayr, that it covered them as the cloth covers the grave; Ibn Masʻūd, that they parted every mother from her child and cried out and sought forgiveness, and that whoever lied without proof was killed, which is why Yūnus went off angry; and Abū l-Jald, that they walked to an old man of the remnant of their learned men who taught them to call on the Living when there is no living, the Giver of life to the dead, and the punishment was lifted — the two Names that stand at 60 and 62 in this book, given as the very means the benefit came by. Ibn Kathīr carries that supplication too, and adds the question the others leave alone: whether the punishment of the Hereafter was lifted from them with the worldly one or the worldly only; the second view he calls the apparent one, since faith is applied to them elsewhere and faith saves from the punishment of the Hereafter. Al-Baghawī reports that the majority held they saw the punishment plainly, on the ground that lifting comes after a thing has fallen or drawn near, which is the answer to az-Zajjāj that al-Qurṭubī does not give; and he carries Wahb’s telling, the black smoking cloud, the blackened roofs, the going out with wives and children and beasts, and the voices of the parted animals mingling with the voices of the people. Al-Qurṭubī adds az-Zajjāj’s defence of the raised reading, Ibn Masʻūd’s detail that a man would pull out the stone he had laid as his foundation and give it back, and ʻAlī’s word that caution does not turn back the decree but supplication does, cited from this very verse. Ibn ʻĀshūr dissents from the majority outright: the sentence is affirmative, the indefinite town takes its generality from the context and from the exception, which is the measure of generality, and the accusative follows from an exception out of an affirmative, so there is no call to make it disjunctive; and what the reports distil is that they hastened to faith after their messenger left and before the punishment fell, so that they were dealt with as any town would be and had no privilege at all. As-Saʻdī will not go that far, and says the wisdom of their being excepted is with the Knower of the unseen and has not reached us, though perhaps it is that the others would have gone back to what they were forbidden while these were known to be such as would hold to it, and did.

O Allah, I ask You for beneficial knowledge, good provision and accepted deeds.

Ibn Mājah 925 · ṣaḥīḥ (al-Albānī); ḍaʻīf (Darussalam)

From Umm Salamah, through a client of hers: said by the Prophet ﷺ after the dawn prayer, as he gave the salām. Nāfiʻan, the root’s participle, said of knowledge. Ibn Mājah 3843 has the command: ask Allah for beneficial knowledge, and seek refuge in Allah from knowledge that does not benefit (al-Albānī: ḥasan; Darussalam: isnād ḥasan). Name 17 carries the supplication.

O Allah, benefit me by what You have taught me, teach me what will benefit me, and increase me in knowledge.

at-Tirmidhī 3599 · ḥasan gharīb (at-Tirmidhī’s own verdict); ṣaḥīḥ (Aḥmad Shākir; al-Albānī); ḍaʻīf (Darussalam)

From Abū Hurayrah. Infaʻnī, benefit me: Allah asked to make what He has taught of benefit, and to teach what will benefit. The record goes on: praise be to Allah in every state, and I seek refuge in Allah from the state of the people of the Fire; at-Tirmidhī calls it ḥasan gharīb from this route. Ibn Mājah 251 and 3833 have the same chain and these words, 251 closing on the praise and 3833 on refuge from the punishment of the Fire (al-Albānī: ṣaḥīḥ; Shuʻayb al-Arnaʼūṭ and Darussalam: ḍaʻīf, at both).

And know that if the community gathered together to benefit you with anything, they would not benefit you except with something Allah had already written for you; and if they gathered together to harm you with anything, they would not harm you except with something Allah had already written against you.

at-Tirmidhī 2516 · ṣaḥīḥ (al-Albānī; Aḥmad Shākir); ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ (at-Tirmidhī; Bashshār ʻAwwād Maʻrūf); isnād ḥasan (Darussalam)

From Ibn ʻAbbās, who was behind the Messenger of Allah ﷺ one day and was addressed yā ghulām: words that follow be mindful of Allah and He will keep you, and if you ask, ask Allah, and if you seek help, seek help from Allah; the record closes on the pens lifted and the pages dried. Yanfaʻūka twice, then yaḍurrūka twice: what all people together can do for or against a person reaches only as far as what Allah has written. At-Tirmidhī: ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. Names 7, 38 and 64 carry its opening, and Name 70 its close.

The likeness of what Allah has sent me with, of guidance and knowledge, is like abundant rain falling on land … and some of it was hard ground that held the water, and Allah benefited people by it: they drank, gave to drink, and farmed … That is the likeness of one who understood the religion of Allah, and what Allah sent me with benefited him, so he learned and taught.

al-Bukhārī 79 · ṣaḥīḥ (muttafaq ʻalayh)

From Abū Mūsā al-Ashʻarī. Fa-nafaʻa llāhu bihā n-nās: Allah the doer of benefit, through ground that held the water for others; and nafaʻahu, of the one whom what the Prophet ﷺ was sent with benefited, who learned and taught. Between the two the report tells of ground that neither holds water nor grows grass, and it closes on one who did not raise his head for it. Muslim 2282 has the same report in other words, raʻaw for zaraʻū, so only al-Bukhārī 79 is cited for the printed wording. Name 60 carries its opening.