On the Day of Resurrection neither your blood-kindred nor your own offspring will avail you.1 (On that Day) He will separate you.2 Allah sees all that you do.3
Footnotes
[1]
The allusion is to Hatib. As he had acted thus only in
order to ensure that his mother and brother and children
remained safe in the event of a war, it is being said: The
relations for whose sake you have committed this grave
error, will not save you on the Day of Resurrection. No one
will dare come forward in the court of Allah and say: Our
father, or our son, or our brother had committed this sin
for our sake; therefore, we may be punished instead of him.
At that time everyone will be worried only about himself,
and weighed down with the anxiety of somehow saving
himself from the consequences of his own acts, not to speak
of being ready to take the burden of another’s sins on him.
This thing has been expressed in clearer words at several
other places in the Quran. At one place it has been said: To
save oneself from the torment of that Day, the culprit will
wish to give his children, his wife, his brother, his kinsfolk,
who gave him shelter, and all the people of the earth, in
ransom that this device might rescue him.
(Surah Al-Maarij, Ayats 11-14). And at another place it is said: On
the Day man shall flee from his brother and his mother and
his father and his wife and his children. Each one of them,
on that Day, shall have enough to occupy him so as to make
him heedless of others.(Surah Abasa, Ayats 34-37).
[2]
That is, all worldly relations and bonds of love and
friendship shall be rendered void in the Hereafter. The
people will not be judged as groups and parties and
families, but every person will have to present himself as an
individual and render his own account only. Therefore, no
one in the world should commit a wrong for the sake of a
relationship or friendship or fraternity, for he will himself
have to face all its consequences, and no one else will
become a partner in a matter of his personal responsibility.
[3]
The following conclusions are deduced from the details
of the case of Hatib, as mentioned above, and the verses
which were revealed in this connection: