Consultation Among Believers, and a Question About Wealth Over Guidance

Hizb 49 closes Fussilat affirming that knowledge of the Hour rests with God alone and that truth will be shown clearly in time, both in the wider world and within each person, before carrying the whole of Ash-Shura, Consultation, which criticizes the fracturing of religion into competing sects and recommends mutual consultation, shura, among believers as the proper way to settle their shared affairs, a verse frequently invoked in later discussion of collective decision making. It describes creation itself as built in complementary pairs and counsels against excessive grief over what has already been decreed.

The hizb then opens Az-Zukhruf, Ornaments of Gold, warning against valuing this world's wealth and finery over guidance, briefly recalling Abraham's rejection of his own father's idolatry, and rebuking a specific complaint raised by the Meccan disbelievers, that they would only have accepted the revelation had it been given instead to some great and wealthy man of one of the two nearby towns.

The hizb closes on that same theme, pressing the argument that wealth is not a measure of who deserves guidance, since God distributes livelihood by His own wisdom rather than by anyone's wealth or status.