Surah Al-Isra Ayat 15 (17:15 Quran) With Tafsir

Ala-Maududi

(17:15) He who follows the Right Way shall do so to his own advantage; and he who strays shall incur his own loss.^[15] No one shall bear another’s burden.^[16] And never do We punish any people until We send a Messenger^[17] (to make the Truth distinct from falsehood).

15. This is to impress that if a person adopts the right way, he does not do any favor to God or His Messenger or a reformer but he himself gets its benefits. On the other hand, if a person deviates from the right way, he can do no harm to God or His Messenger or a reformer, for they desire only to protect men from wrong ways and guide him on to the right way, and not for any selfish ends. Therefore, the right course for a wise man is to adopt the righteous way when it becomes distinct to him what is truth and what is falsehood. On the other hand, if he rejects truth because of his prejudices and self interest, he will be his own enemy and not a well wisher.

16. The Quran has laid great stress on the doctrine of personal responsibility at several places, for one cannot follow the right way scrupulously without understanding fully its implication. It means that, everyone is solely responsible for his moral conduct and is accountable to God as an individual in his own person and no other person can share the burden of responsibility with him. As an instance, we take the case of a particular action or a particular way of conduct in which a generation or a community of a large number of people had collaborated. When the people will assemble before Allah on the Day of Judgment, their collective action will be analyzed so as to lay the burden of its responsibility on each and every person who had been conducive to it, and rewarded or punished in accordance with it. Neither will a person be punished for the part another had played in its performance nor shall the burden of the sin of one individual be laid on the shoulders of another. This doctrine has been emphasized over and over again so that a wise man should not act in imitation of another or justify his own conduct by similar deeds of others. If a particular person feels the sense of his own responsibility, he will act in such a way as to come out successful on the Day of Judgment, regardless of what the others do.

17. This is another doctrine which has been impressed on the minds by the Quran in different ways. This is to emphasize the basic importance that a Messenger has in the dispensation of divine justice because this is determined in the light of the message brought by him. This will be employed as an argument in favor of or against the concerned people. Otherwise the infliction of punishment on the people would be unjust for in that case they could argue that they should not be punished as the knowledge of the righteous way had not been conveyed to them. But after the message had been conveyed to a particular people, and they had rejected it, there would be left no excuse for them.

It is an irony that instead of accepting the message some people are misled by reading verses like this and they ask such absurd questions: What will be the position of those, who might not have received the message of any Prophet? The wise course for such persons would have been to ask themselves what their own position will be on the Day of Judgment, because they themselves had received the message. As regards to other people, Allah knows best who has received the message, and when, how and to what extent and what attitude a certain person adopted towards it. In short, Allah alone is aware of whether a particular person received the message in such a way as to fulfill the required condition for punishment.

Ibn-Kathir

15. Whoever goes right, then he goes right only for the benefit of himself. And whoever goes astray, then he goes astray at his own loss. No one laden with burdens can bear another’s burden. And We never punish until We have sent a Messenger (to give warning).

Allah tells us that whoever is guided and follows the truth, walking in the footsteps of the Prophet , he will gain the good consequences of that for himself.

(And whoever goes astray,) meaning from the truth, deviating from the way of guidance, he is wronging himself and will have to bear the consequences. Then Allah says:

(No one laden with burdens can bear another’s burden.) no one will have to bear the sins of another, and he does not wrong anyone besides himself, as Allah says:

(and if one heavily laden calls another to (bear) his load, nothing of it will be lifted) ﴿35:15﴾ There is no contradiction between this and other Ayat:

(And verily, they shall bear their own loads, and other loads besides their own.) ﴿29:13﴾ and:

(and also of the burdens of those whom they misled without knowledge.) ﴿16:25﴾ For those who called others to do evil will bear the sin of their own deviation as well as the sin of those whom they led astray, without detracting the least amount from the burden of those people, and none of this burden shall be removed from them. This is the justice and mercy of Allah towards His servants. As Allah says:

(And We never punish until We have sent a Messenger (to give warning).)

Allah tells us that out of His justice, He does not punish anyone until He has established proof against him by sending a Messenger to him, as He says:

(Every time a group is cast therein, its keeper will ask: “Did no warner come to you” They will say: “Yes, indeed a warner did come to us, but we belied him and said: `Allah never sent down anything (of revelation); you are only in great error.”’) (67:8-9) And,

(And those who disbelieved will be driven to Hell in groups, till, when they reach it, the gates thereof will be opened. And its keepers will say, “Did not the Messengers come to you from yourselves – reciting to you the verses of your Lord, and warning you of the meeting of this Day of yours” They will say: “Yes,” but the Word of torment has been justified against the disbelievers!) (39:71) And,

(Therein they will cry: “Our Lord! Bring us out, we shall do righteous good deeds, not (the evil deeds) that we used to do.” (Allah will reply) “Did We not give you lives long enough, so that whosoever would receive admonition could receive it And the warner came to you. So taste you (the evil of your deeds). For the wrongdoers there is no helper.”) (35:37) There are other Ayat which indicate that Allah will not make anyone enter Hell except after sending a Messenger to them.

Here there arises an issue over which the scholars in earlier and modern times have disagreed, may Allah have mercy on them. This is the issue of children who die when they are little, and their parents are disbelievers: what happens to them By the same token, what happens to the insane, the deaf, the senile and those who die during the circumstances of Fatrah, when no Message reached them Several Hadiths have been narrated on this topic, which I will quote here by the help and support of Allah. The First Hadith from Al-Aswad bin Sar ®299؛ Imam Ahmad reported from Al-Aswad bin Sari’ that the Messenger of Allah said,

(There are four who will present their case on the Day of Resurrection: a deaf man who never heard anything, an insane man, a very old and senile man, and a man who died during the Fatrah. As for the deaf man, he will say, “O Lord, Islam came but I never heard anything.” As for the insane man, he will say, “O Lord, Islam came and the young boys were throwing camel dung at me.” As for the senile man, he will say, “O Lord, Islam came and I did not understand anything.” As for the one who died during the Fatrah, he will say, “O Lord, no Messenger from You came to me.” Allah will accept their pledge of obedience to Him, then He will send word to them that they should enter the Fire. By the One in Whose Hand is the soul of Muhammad, if they enter it, it will be cool and safe for them.) There is a similar report with a chain from Qatadah from Al-Hasan from Abu Rafi` from Abu Hurayrah, but at the end it says:

(Whoever enters it will find it cool and safe, and whoever does not enter it will be dragged into it.) This was also recorded by Ishaq bin Rahwayh from Mu`adh bin Hisham, and by Al-Bayhaqi in Al-I`tiqad. He said: “This is a Sahih chain.” It was reported by Ibn Jarir from the Hadith of Ma`mar from Hammam from Abu Hurayrah, who attributed it to the Prophet . Then Abu Hurayrah said: “Recite, if you wish:

(And We never punish until We have sent a Messenger (to give warning)).” This was also narrated by Ma`mar from `Abdullah bin Tawus from his father, from Abu Hurayrah, but it is Mauquf (it was not attributed directly to the Prophet ).

He said that the Messenger of Allah said:

(Every newborn is born in a state of Fitrah (the natural state of man), then his parents make him into a Jew or Christian or Zoroastrian, as animals produce whole animals – do you see any that is born mutilated (with something missing)) According to one report they said: “O Messenger of Allah, what about those who die when they are little” He said,

(Allah knows best what they would have done.) Imam Ahmad reported from Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet () as far as I know – the narrator was not sure if it was attributed to Musa – said:

(The children of the Muslims are in Paradise, being taken care of by Ibrahim.) In Sahih Muslim it is reported from `Iyyad bin Hammad that the Messenger of Allah said that Allah said:

(I have created My servants as Hunafa.) According to another version, the wording is “as Muslims.”

In his book Al-Mustakhraj `Ala Al-Bukhari, Al-Hafiz Abu Bakr Al-Barqani recorded the Hadith of `Awf Al-A`rabi, from Abu Raja’ Al-`Utardi from Samurah that the Prophet said:

(Every newborn is born in a state of Fitrah.) The people called out to him: “O Messenger of Allah! What about the children of the idolators” He said,

(And the children of the idolators too.) At-Tabarani reported that Samurah said: “We asked the Messenger of Allah about the children of the idolators, and he said,

(They are the servants of the people of Paradise.)

Ahmad reported that Hasna’ bint Mu`awiyah, from Bani Suraym, said that his paternal uncle said to him: “I said, `O Messenger of Allah, who is in Paradise’ He said,

(Prophets are in Paradise, martyrs are in Paradise, infants are in Paradise and baby girls who were buried alive are in Paradise.)

In order to discuss this issue we need good, sound proof, but people who have no knowledge of Shari`ah may try to speak about it. For this reason some of the scholars did not like to discuss it. This view has been narrated from Ibn `Abbas, Al-Qasim bin Muhammad bin Abi Bakr As-Siddiq, Muhammad bin Al-Hanafiyyah and others. Ibn Hibban recorded in his Sahih that Jarir bin Hazim said: I heard Abu Raja’ Al-`Utardi saying that he heard Ibn `Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) saying, “While he was on the Minbar, the Messenger of Allah said:

(This Ummah will be fine so long as they do not talk about children and the divine decree.)” Ibn Hibban said: “This means talking about the children of the idolators.” Abu Bakr Al-Bazzar also recorded it via Jarir bin Hazim, then he said, “A group narrated it from Abu Raja’ from Ibn `Abbas, but it is Mauquf”.