[And you do not encourage one another to feed the poor] Fajr:18
The context of the above āyah talks about the polytheists of Quraish and their vile beliefs and actions, which included not encouraging each other to feed the poor.
Notice, it does not talk about the actual act of feeding the poor, but simply encouraging it and motivating others to do it. And this is not the only place in the Qur`ān where the unbelievers are condemned for not encouraging each other to feed the poor, the repetition of this tells us of the great significance of feeding the poor.
The reason why Allah specifies encouraging others to feed the poor is for many reasons, one of them is because not everyone is financially able to provide for the poor and needy, but everyone can be an activist for Islām and encourage others to do good deeds.
This emphasises something great: being a Muslim is not a private matter (restricted to your heart or home); it is a communal effort involving every member of the society – from the rich to the poor, the well off to the needy, the big to the small, the parent to the child.
From this we learn that doing good on our own is not enough, what matters to Allah is that we encourage others to do it as well.
You feed the poor and give charity, but do you encourage your friends to do it?
Similarly, you got up to pray on time, and that is good. But did you encourage your mother, your father and your siblings to pray on time as well? That would have been excellent.
Concluding with the point I mentioned above about Islām being a communal effort as opposed to a solely individual one, we learn that through encouraging and motivating each other to provide for the poor, not only do we distance ourselves from disbelief but we also move a step closer towards solving the perplexing problem of poverty.
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