“What is the matter with you that you do not help one another? Rather, today they are wholly submissive. And they will turn to one another, questioning each other. They will say, ‘You used to come to us from the right.’ They will reply, ‘Rather, you were not believers.’”

“What is the matter with you that you do not help one another?” That is, why do you not help one another? This will be said to them as a rebuke: Why does none of you help another? The keepers of Hell will say this to them. It is a response to Abu Jahl when he said on the day of Badr, “We are an invincible host” (al-Qamar 54:44).

Then Allah Most High says: “Rather, today they are wholly submissive.” Ibn Abbas said: “Subdued.” Al-Hasan said: “Compliant.” One says, “He submitted himself to a thing,” when he yielded and humbled himself to it. The meaning is that on that Day they will be humiliated and compliant, having no power or resource.

“And they will turn to one another,” that is, the leaders and their followers, “questioning each other”—that is, disputing with one another.

“They will say,” that is, the followers will say to the leaders, “You used to come to us from the right”: meaning, from the direction of religion, thereby leading us astray from it [and making us see religion as that by which you led us astray]. (1) This was said by al-Dahhak. Mujahid said: “From the true path.” The right is an expression for religion and truth, as Allah Most High relates of Iblis: “Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them, from their right and from their left” (al-Araf 7:17). Thus, when Satan comes to someone from the right, he comes to him through the avenue of religion, confusing the truth for him.

Others said: The leaders would swear to them that what they called them to was the truth. Thus, the meaning of His saying, “You used to come to us from the right,” is: from the standpoint of the oaths you used to swear, so we trusted them. 95/

It was also said that “from the right” means: through strength and power, as in His saying, “We would surely have seized him by the right hand” (al-Haqqah 69:45). But the exegetes uphold the first view.

“They will reply,” meaning the leaders (2) will reply to the followers, “Rather, you were not believers”: you were not upon the truth, such that we could lead you astray from it. Rather, your disbelief came from yourselves.