Quran Likens Consuming Orphans’ Property Wrongfully to Swallowing Fire
The Quran says in Verse 10 of Surah An-Nisa:
“(As for) those who swallow the property of the orphans unjustly, surely they only swallow fire into their bellies and they shall enter burning fire.”
How come one does not feel the fire that is burning him from inside? It is because they have gone numb.
Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi, known in the Latin West as Alpharabius, says that if a limb in the body is desensitized with opium, when fire is put on that limb, there is no feeling of pain but after some time when the effect of the opium is gone, the person will cry out in pain.
This is also the case when someone’s conscience is desensitized with the opium of negligence and heedlessness and takes away the wealth of orphans without any fear or shame.
But when that negligence is gone with a warning or ultimately with death, the person will be in a burning hell from which there is no escape.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (an American novelist and short story writer) has a story about a man with a snake in his bosom. In this story, he talks about a man who is first frightened by the snake but gradually gets accustomed to it and keeps it in a jar.
Also, Stephen Crane (an American poet, novelist, and short story writer) writes in a story about how a young man who wouldn’t hurt a fly gradually turns into someone who has no qualms about killing hundreds of people.
Many a time, sadness and grief and fire come to people in the form of gold and silver ad money and neglectful people consume them as if they were sweet and tasty.
This is how many people pay no attention to where their money is coming from. They are too attached to the world and to wealth and fortunes and even consume the properties of orphans wrongfully. But there will come a day when “On that day, hell will be brought closer and the human being will come to his senses, but this will be of no avail to him. He will say: ‘Would that I had forwarded (good works) for my life!’ On that day the punishment of God and His detention will be unparalleled.” (Verses 23-25 of Surah Al-Fajr)
