• The difference between Allah’s affirming kinship ties among people in many Qur’anic passages and His denying them in others is as follows:
• In the passages where kinship is denied, the intent is that such ties will be of no benefit, just as none of the ordinary means will avail on the Day of Resurrection except for one cause alone—faith and righteous deeds, as He has stated in several places in His Book.
• In the passages where kinship is affirmed, the text simply states the actual reality.

Each context is mentioned in the manner that suits it:
– In contexts of grace and reward, Allah proclaims His favor upon everyone by joining those believers who are deficient to those who are complete in faith, without in any way reducing the rank of the latter. For example, He says: “And those who believed and whose descendants followed them in faith—we will join their descendants with them, and We will not deprive them of anything of their deeds” (al-Ṭūr 52:21); and, “Gardens of perpetual residence which they will enter, along with whoever among their fathers, spouses, and children was righteous” (al-Raʿd 13:23), and similar verses.
– In contexts of justice and punishment, He mentions kinship ties to show that they will be of no benefit, and that the matter is too weighty for a person even to look toward those nearest to him. He says: “The sinner would wish to ransom himself from the torment of that Day with his children, his spouse, his brother, and his close clan that shelters him” (al-Maʿārij 70:11–13); and, “The Day when a man will flee from his brother, his mother, his father, his spouse, and his children; each one of them that Day will have a matter sufficient to preoccupy him” (ʿAbasa 80:34–37).

• A parallel to this is the information given about the criminals:
– that they will be questioned about their deeds in order to manifest perfect justice, to censure and reproach them, and to expose their disgrace.