It is common knowledge that patronage was a fundamental part of late antique life; but to date there has been almost no consideration of how this pervasive social structure is refracted in the Qur’an. ‘Patronage’ has a technical sense stretching back to classical antiquity, which involves a relationship between patron and client, who were often masters and freedmen. Historians of early Islam have long recognised the affinity of Arabian social structures of patronage with that context; indeed, most of the classic studies of patronage in early Islam, such as those by Patricia Crone or Ella Landau-Tesseron, focus on institutions of legal and political patronage, such as practices of ‘clientage’ (walāʾ), and Crone’s work shows the affinity with Roman institutions. Such studies, which omit the Qur’an entirely, ultimately take a narrow view of the nature of patronage, if not of its effects. Yet the term ‘patronage’ can also refer to the exchange of gifts and favours in a broader sense. Patronage – in both the technical sense of patron-client relations and the much broader, non-technical sense –is amply demonstrated in the Qur’an. Although the concept of ‘patronage’ goes beyond any single set of terms, the principal dynamics of the patronage institution, in both its spiritual and practical manifestations, are referenced directly in words deriving from the root letters w-l-y. The more than 100 occurrences of terms stemming from this root, including walī, awliyāʾ and mawlā, and meaning, variously, protection, patronage, patron, people under the protection of a patron (protégés), guardianship and alliance, are well distributed in the Qurʾānic address, in sūras 2 to 62, which shows the importance of this concept through time. Variants of phrases like Q. 2:107 you will not find any [true] protector or supporter other than God (wa-mā lakum min dūn Allāh min waliyyin wa-lā naṣīr) are commonplace. Lexical variants of the root w-l-y may, indeed, indicate a specific form of patronage, as a primarily spiritual alignment and alliance which nevertheless had practical consequences in this world. This paper has implications for existing theories of patronage. Seth Schwartz and Marina Rustow have argued that there is tension between institutionalised reciprocity, as seen in patronage societies, and theoretical solidarity, which might be created by piety. A close examination of the language of patronage in the Qur’an, however, indicates that Qur’anic piety does not conflict with or seek to undermine social structures of reciprocity such as households and patronage, but rather is predicated on those social structures and enacted within them.