(15–16) “Whoever desires the life of this world and its adornment, We shall repay them in full for their deeds therein, and therein they will not be deprived in the least. * Those are the ones who will have nothing in the Hereafter but the Fire. What they accomplished therein will come to nothing, and all they used to do will be worthless.”

Allah Most High says, “Whoever desires the life of this world and its adornment.” This means one whose entire desire is confined to worldly life and its adornment ⦗379⦘: women, sons, amassed treasures of gold and silver, fine horses, livestock, and cultivated land. Such a person has devoted his aspirations, efforts, and deeds to these things and has reserved no part of his desire for the Abode of Permanence. Such a person can only be a disbeliever, for were he a believer, his faith would prevent him from directing his entire desire toward the worldly abode. Indeed, his very faith and whatever deeds he is able to perform are themselves effects of his desire for the abode of the Hereafter.

But as for this wretched person, who seems to have been created for this world alone, “We shall repay them in full for their deeds therein”; that is, We grant them whatever worldly reward has been allotted to them in the Master Record.

“And therein they will not be deprived in the least.” That is, nothing decreed for them will be diminished, yet this is the furthest extent of their bliss.

“Those are the ones who will have nothing in the Hereafter but the Fire,” remaining there forever. Their punishment will never be lightened, and they have been deprived of immense reward.

“What they accomplished therein will come to nothing”—that is, in this world. In other words, whatever they did to plot against the truth and those who uphold it will be rendered void and vanish, as will the good deeds they performed that had no foundation and whose necessary condition—faith—was absent.