“And God Created You and What You Make” (Q 37:96): the Axiology of Labour in the Qur’an

Labour, one of the main ambivalent phenomena of human existence, reveals its conceptual diversity in the historical dynamics of self‑development. In the most literal sense, labour, as work that requires effort and causes fatigue, is not conceptualised in the Qur’an, and references to the involvement of human beings in any production process are extremely rare in the text compared to the domain of trade in its metaphorical and material expression. The aim of the article is to identify in the text of the Qur’an, hidden behind a multitude of intertwined semantic layers, the value nature of energy‑consuming human actions — physical and intellectual — which the author considers to be outside the Qur’anic religious and legal concept of sin and virtue, but within the concept of labour as the basis of socio‑economic relations. An important task of the article lies in the attempt to refocus the discourse on the issue of the specificity of socio‑economic relations, especially in Mecca during the time of the Prophet. It seems that the existence of a large settlement, with its activities based mainly on the long‑distance caravan trade and the provision of services to pilgrims, was naturally related to the lifestyle of the commercial and intermediary centres that existed in the ancient and the early medieval world, including the Mediterranean region. The work presents a limited selection of Qur’anic material on the topic from this particular perspective.