(12–13) “Those who disbelieve say to those who believe, ‘Follow our way, and we will bear your sins.’ Yet they will bear nothing of their sins. They are certainly liars. They will surely bear their own burdens and other burdens besides their own, and on the Day of Resurrection they will surely be questioned about what they used to fabricate.”

Allah Most High informs us of the disbelievers’ falsehood and their invitation to the believers to adopt their religion. Implicit in this is a warning to the believers not to be deceived by them or fall prey to their schemes. He says: “Those who disbelieve say to those who believe, ‘Follow our way’”—that is, abandon your religion, or part of it, and follow us in ours. They claim that they will guarantee the outcome for them: “and we will bear your sins.” Yet this matter is not in their hands. Hence He says: “Yet they will bear nothing of their sins”—neither little nor much. Even if the person concerned consents to another assuming his sins, it is of no avail, for the right belongs to Allah, and Allah Most High has not empowered a servant to dispose of His right except by His command and judgment. His judgment is that “no bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another.”

His statement, “Yet they will bear nothing of their sins,” might also be misconstrued to mean that the disbelievers who call others to their unbelief—and others like them who call people to their falsehood—bear only the sin they themselves committed, but none of the sin committed by others, even when they were the cause of it. He therefore says, [clarifying this misconception] (1):

“They will surely bear their own burdens”—that is, the burdens of the sins they committed—“and other burdens besides their own.” These are the sins committed because of them and through their instigation. Thus, of a sin committed by a follower, [the follower] and the one followed each bear their respective share: the former because he committed it directly, and the latter because he caused it and called him to it. Likewise, when a follower performs a good deed, he receives its reward for doing it directly, while the one who called him to it receives a reward for having been its cause. “And on the Day of Resurrection they will surely be questioned about what they used to fabricate”—the evil they made alluring, [and their claim] (2), “We will bear your sins.”