An Nafay’ - The Owner of all Benefits
An Nafay' is the Rab who cares about our benefits. He is the owner of all the small and big benefits that we have in our lives. He is the owner of our benefits in this life and the next everlasting life. There is no one other than our Rab who can bring us any benefit.
Sometimes, we ask desperately for something, we see it better in the short term, but it is of no benefit or even of harm for us in the Akhirah. Our Nafay' Rab intends to give us benefits in both lives.
He has a vision that can see our long-term benefits that we cannot see because of our limited vision and understanding capacity. So, as His slave, it is much easier to rely on Him for all our benefits and believe that any good that is for us will reach us without any delay at the right time.
As we already mentioned, this name is in the Quran in its verbal form. Moreover, the term of benefit نَفْعًا is always paired in the Quran with its opposite, that is, harm ضَرًّا.
We are taking النافع as a quality/character-driven name of ALLAH, but the opposite along with it, we will study only as it is used in the aayat of the Quran. This is the way our Prophets taught us, i.e. to relate all the good to ALLAH and no harm and non-good character, action, or name will be referred towards Him. This is done as a matter of His immense respect we keep in our hearts.
It is very important to understand at this point that when Allah the Almighty wants hardship for His servant,
1-There is no one who can remove or repel this hardship except Him. Idols and other humans cannot ward off harm from a person.
2- That hardship is a test, as ease is a test too. The hard times ALLAH wrote for us are to make us learn something that is not possible without that situation of harm.
But if He wants good for His servants, such as abundant provision, good health, and other things, no one can prevent His giving. He, the Almighty and the Majestic, bestows this grace upon whomever He wills of His servants, and He is not questioned about what He does. Glory be to Him, He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.
This beautiful hadith, narrated by Ibn Abbas, may ALLAH be pleased with him, provides the most accurate explanation of these two majestic characteristics of ALLAH subhanahu wa ta’ala.
The human share in the name of An Nafay’ is to make our best efforts to do maximum benefit for others.
One specified part of our time, our talents and our blessings should go back to ALLAH subhanahu wa ta’ala in the efforts of raising His Majestic Name and the better conveying of the reminders of Islam to fellow humans.
In addition to this, we need to make ourselves beneficial (and at least not harmful) to all, including ourselves, our parents, our family and friends, all Muslims, all humans and all living creatures of ALLAH.
