(128–135) “On the Day He gathers them all together, He will say, ‘O assembly of jinn, you have led many humans astray.’ Their allies among humankind will say, ‘Our Lord, we benefited from one another and have now reached the term You appointed for us.’ He will say, ‘The Fire is your abode, where you will remain forever, except as Allah wills. Surely your Lord is All-Wise, All-Knowing.’ Thus do We make some wrongdoers allies of others because of what they used to earn. ‘O assembly of jinn and humankind! Did messengers not come to you from among yourselves, recounting My signs to you and warning you that you would meet this Day of yours?’ They will say, ‘We testify against ourselves.’ The life of this world deluded them, and they will testify against themselves that they were disbelievers. That is because your Lord would never destroy towns unjustly while their people were unaware.”
Allah says, “On the Day He gathers them all together”—that is, all humankind and jinn, both those who went astray and those who led others astray. Rebuking the jinn who misled humans, made evil seem attractive to them, and spurred them into sin, He will say: “O assembly of jinn, you have led many humans astray”—by misleading them and barring them from Allah’s path. How could you violate what I have made sacred and brazenly oppose My messengers? How could you wage war against Allah and strive to bar Allah’s servants from His path, turning them instead toward the path of the Blazing Fire?
Today My curse has rightfully fallen upon you, and My vengeance has become your due. We shall increase your punishment in proportion to your disbelief and your misleading of others. You have no excuse to offer, no refuge to which you can flee, no intercessor to intercede for you, and no prayer that will be heard. Do not ask, then, about the exemplary punishment, disgrace, and ruin that will befall them. This is why Allah mentions no excuse offered by them. Their human allies, however, put forward an unacceptable plea, saying: “Our Lord, we benefited from one another.” That is, both the jinn and the human benefited from his companion and profited through him.
The jinn benefited from the human’s obedience, worship, veneration, and appeals to him for refuge. The human benefited by attaining his aims and, through the jinn’s service, fulfilling some of his desires. The human would worship the jinn, and the jinn would serve him and fulfill some of his worldly needs. In other words: We committed the sins that we did, and that can no longer be undone. “We have now reached the term You appointed for us”—that is, we have reached the place where we will be requited for our deeds. So do with us now as You will and judge us as You please. Our argument has come to an end, and we have no excuse left. All command is Yours, and all judgment is Yours. Their words appear to contain a measure of humble entreaty and an appeal for compassion, but it came too late. He therefore passed His just judgment upon them, in which there is no injustice: “The Fire is your abode, where you will remain forever.”
Since this judgment proceeds from His wisdom and knowledge, He concluded the verse by saying: “Surely your Lord is All-Wise, All-Knowing.” Just as His knowledge extends to and encompasses all things, the wisdom of His purposes likewise comprehends, pervades, and embraces them all.
“Thus do We make some wrongdoers allies of others because of what they used to earn.” That is, just as We made the rebellious jinn the allies of their human followers, gave them power to mislead them, and bound them together in an alliance of mutual accord because of what they had earned and pursued, so too it is Our established way to make every wrongdoer the ally of another like him. He impels him toward evil and urges him to commit it, while making him lose interest in good and driving him away from it. This is one of Allah’s gravest punishments: its consequences are appalling and its peril immense.
The fault rests with the wrongdoer himself. He brought harm upon himself and against himself he committed the wrong. “Your Lord is never unjust to His servants.” One instance of this is that when injustice and corruption become widespread among people and they withhold obligatory rights, Allah places tyrants over them who subject them to grievous ⦗274⦘ torment and unjustly exact from them many times what they withheld of Allah’s rights and the rights of His servants, in a manner for which they receive no reward and which they cannot count as an offering made for Allah.
Conversely, when people are righteous and upright, Allah reforms those who govern them and makes them leaders of justice and fairness, rather than governors of oppression and tyranny. Allah then rebuked all the jinn and humans who turned away from and rejected the truth. He made their error plain, and they acknowledged it. He said:
“O assembly of jinn and humankind! Did messengers not come to you from among yourselves, recounting My signs to you?” These were clear and manifest signs containing a detailed exposition of commands and prohibitions, good and evil, and promises and warnings.
“And warning you that you would meet this Day of yours?” They informed you that salvation and success on that Day could be attained only by obeying Allah’s commands and avoiding His prohibitions, while misery and loss would result from neglecting them. They affirmed and acknowledged this. “They will say,” ‘Yes, “we testify against ourselves.”’ “The life of this world deluded them” with its adornment, splendor, and pleasures. They became content and satisfied with it, and it distracted them from the Hereafter. “They will testify against themselves that they were disbelievers.” Allah’s proof was thereby established against them, and everyone—even they themselves—recognized the justice of Allah’s judgment upon them.
He will therefore say to them, sentencing them to painful punishment: “Enter among” the hosts of “nations of jinn and humankind that passed away before you.” They did just as you have done, enjoyed their allotted share just as you did, and plunged into falsehood just as you did. They truly were losers—both the earlier and the later among them. What loss could be greater than losing the Gardens of Bliss and being deprived of nearness to the Most Generous of all? Yet although they all share in this loss, they differ greatly in its degree.