“And seek by means of what Allah has given you...

“And seek by means of what Allah has given you, the abode of the Hereafter, and do not forget your portion in this world, and be good (to others) just as Allah has been good to you, and do not seek to make mischief in the land, verily Allah does not love the mischief-makers.” Every body ought to suffice to his own share in this world and let the rest for Hereafter. Wealth and property can become a means for the prosperity in Hereafter.

In this verse, next to the advice mentioned in the previous holy verse, there are four other expressive and instructive exhortations here for Korah which form a complete five-ring collection. At first, it says: “And seek by means of what Allah has given you, the abode of the Hereafter…” It points to the fact that, in spite of the imagination of some ill-disposed persons, wealth and property is not a bad thing; the important thing is that we must see in which way it is used.

If it is applied in the way of seeking the good abode of the Hereafter, what is better than that? If it is a mean of pride, negligence, injustice, oppression, and sensuality, what, then, can be worse than it? This is the same logic that Amir-ul-Mu’minin Ali’s famous sentence reminds about the world.

He said: “…If one sees through it (the world), it would bestow him sight, but if one has his eye on it, it would blind him.” [^1] And Korah was a person who had the power of performing a lot of social good affairs with those abundant properties he had; what was use of it when his pride did not let him see the facts?

By the second advice, it is added that he should decrease his portion from this world: the verse says: “…and do not forget your portion in this world…” This is a fact that every person has a proper limit share of this world, viz., the amount of properties he uses for his body, clothing, and residence is a definite amount, and the additional ones are never consumed by him; therefore, one must not forget this fact. How much food can a person eat? How many pieces of clothing can he wear?

How many houses and how many cars can he have? And how many shrouds does he take with him when he dies? The rest, however, is the share of others and man is the depositary of them. How nice Hadrat Amir-ul-Mu’minin Ali (as) stated when he said: “O’ son of Adam!