Exegesis of the verse: ((And give to the orphans their property, and do not exchange the bad for the good, and do not consume their property along with your own, for it is indeed a great sin.))

Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, said: means give, means they came, and His saying: is the first object, and is the second object, and this verb takes two objects whose original form is not the subject and the predicate. And His saying: is the plural of orphan, derived from orphanhood, which means being alone. By technical definition, it refers to one whose father has died while he is young and has not reached puberty, whether male or female. If he reaches puberty, his orphanhood ceases according to the technical definition and the legal ruling. For this reason, it came in the hadith: meaning after he reaches puberty, because when he reaches puberty, he becomes independent. And His saying: their property means? That which belongs to them, whether it is with you in your capacity as guardians, or it is not with you but you took it without right. And His saying: means do not betray any of it, do not conceal any of it, and do not corrupt it, but give it to them as it was. It is not required by His saying: Here there is a difference between giving the money to him and preserving the money for him until he is given it in full. The verse we are discussing, does it mean the first or the second? The second. Do you see the difference between the first and the second? Is there a difference between giving (ittā') and handing over (daf')? We say yes, there is a difference between them, because handing over means you do not give him the money until he reaches maturity and shows wisdom, whereas giving the money means we preserve the money for them such that we give it to them in full when the time for handing over arrives. means do not take the good in place of the bad, meaning do not take the bad in place of the good. How do we not take the bad in place of the good? The meaning is: we do not give them the bad from our property and take the good in its place. This is the meaning of the verse. It was also said: its meaning is do not take their property to become self-sufficient with the good, because property is forbidden and the forbidden is bad. So there are two aspects. The first aspect: do not take the good from their property and give them the bad. For example, if the orphan has fat, good sheep, and his guardian has thin, poor sheep, he takes the good from the orphan's sheep and gives him the poor ones. This is forbidden. Or if he has good, pure barley, he takes it and gives him poor, mixed barley, and the like. So the meaning, if means do not take the good and give them the bad. This is one. The second meaning or second aspect: do not take anything from their property, because their property is forbidden for you, and the forbidden is bad. And the meaning of the verse would be: do not take their property so that you become self-sufficient with it instead of the good that you earn through lawful means. Both matters are forbidden, meaning whether you took his money without giving him anything, or you took his good money and gave him poor money, all of it is forbidden. "to" The scholars said it means "with", i.e., do not consume their property with your property. It was also said: rather, "to" is on its original meaning, but implies the meaning of "combine", i.e., do not combine their property with your property and consume it. This latter view is more correct, because attributing the meaning of one verb to another in the Qur'an is common, and using "to" to mean "with" is rare. Interpreting the verse according to the common meaning in the Qur'an is preferable to interpreting it according to the rare meaning. This is one of the rules of exegesis: interpreting the verse according to the common meaning in the Qur'an is preferable to interpreting it according to the rare meaning, because if it is the common usage in the Qur'an, it becomes the technical usage of the Qur'an and the literal meaning of the Qur'an. The pronoun refers to the preceding verb composed of two things: exchanging the bad for the good, and the second: consuming the property to our property. meaning this action, so the pronoun refers to the action understood from what came before. meaning it was with Allah. meaning a sin or a transgression. And "great" is the opposite of "small," because sins are divided into minor and major, so this is from the major sins.