O You Who Believe

42)

"O you who have believed, upon you is [responsibility for] yourselves. Those who have gone astray will not harm you when you have been guided. To Allah is your return all together; then He will inform you of what you used to do."

[Al-Maidah 5:105]

This is a warning against a common human weakness. Some people are always on the look-out to find out and criticize errors in others. Here such people have been admonished against this evil and asked to concentrate their attention on their own acts, deeds, morals and beliefs instead of probing into and criticizing the conduct and beliefs of others. If a man himself is obedient to Allah and fulfills his obligations to Him and man, and treads the path of truth and righteousness, which also includes the establishment of virtue and the eradication of vice, then most surely the crookedness and deviation of any other can do him no harm.

This verse however, does not mean that a person should think only of his own salvation and leave alone the reform and welfare of others.

Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (RA) refuted this misconception in an address, saying, "O people, you recite this verse and put on it a wrong interpretation. I myself heard the Holy Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasallam) say, 'When the people become so indifferent that they see evil and do not try to eradicate it and see an unjust person doing an injustice and do not prevent him from it, Allah may punish all of them.' I swear by Allah that it is obligatory on you to enjoin virtue and forbid evil; (if you neglect this) Allah will place you under the worst people who will inflict hardships on you. Then your good people will offer prayers but He will not accept these."

Similar to this concept, another verse is repeated in the Qur'an:

"And no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another. And if a heavily laden soul calls [another] to [carry some of] its load, nothing of it will be carried, even if he should be a close relative. You can only warn those who fear their Lord unseen and have established prayer. And whoever purifies himself only purifies himself for [the benefit of] his soul. And to Allah is the [final] destination."

[Qur'an 35:18]

Prophet Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasallam) would become sad and depressed for the people who wouldn't accept Islam and he would go to extreme lengths to convince them but they won't listen. Then, Allah would reassure him that in Allah's hands is the power to guide, not in anyone else's hands. Hence Allah guided him that he shouldn't take responsibility for their actions. The responsibility of Prophet Muhammad (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) was to tell us about the message of Allah.

Similarly, our responsibility, as his ummat is to convey the message of Allah to the world and the people. The burden is not on our shoulders if they reject but we must do our utmost effort while taking our Prophet as an idol to call the creation to The Creator.

And most importantly, before advising someone something, we must analyse ourselves first and improve ourselves.

That is the first point mentioned in this verse. Our main focus should be on ourself because everyone is answerable of his own deeds next to Allah Almighty.

Then the next guidance, to deal with those who have gone astray and hwve chosen the wrong path, Allah says that they cannot harm us. So once we have lost all our hope in guiding the disbelievers, we should separate our paths because for them is their religion and for us is our religion.

The third point is the solidification of the applied fact that the final return is to Allah and He will do the accountability. This is the third and last topic of Qur'an. Belief in the Day of Accountability and the fact that after death, each soul will awaken and will be answerable to Allah for what they have been doing in life.

The other two topics of Qur'an are Tauheed (Belief in Oneness of God) and Risalat (Belief in the Messengers and Prophets of Allah).

Things we learnt:

> No bearer of burden will bear someone else's burden. The first and utmost responsibility upon any human is himself. No one will be questioned about someone else. Rather, of himself.

> The second responsibility on a believer is to convey Allah's message to other people. But the path they chose cannot harm us i.e if they go astray, they will be questioned about themselves. We won't be questioned about them. Conversely, if they chose the right path, the reward will be given to us. In both cases, they cannot harm us.

> The final return is to Allah. To Him do all affairs return and so do all souls. We will all be one day answerable to Allah. May Allah keep us striving till he becomes pleased with us. Ameen.

May Allah forgive us and guide us.
Ameen.
Wama alayna illal balaghul mubeen.