“And no one laden bears the burden of another...

“And no one laden bears the burden of another; and if one heavy-burdened calls for its load to be carried, not a thing of it will be carried, even if he be a near kinsman. You warn only those who fear their Lord in secret and keep up prayer. And whoever purifies (himself), he only purifies for his own self. And Unto Allah (alone) is the destination (of all).” Based on justice, everyone must carry his own burden.

The verse says: “And no one laden bears the burden of another…” In the Hereafter, the Record and Reckoning of everybody is separate from those of others. In the Qur’an we recite that, in order to deceive others, a group of disbelievers say: “…follow our path and we will certainly bear (the burdens of) your sins’…” [^1] This verse is an answer to them.

Question: Taking this verse which says in Hereafter the burden of everybody is on one’s own shoulder and it does not harm others, can we say we should leave alone the sinners, because they themselves will carry the burden of their own sins and it does not relate to us? Answer: This verse does not justify the silence before unlawful things, because undue silence itself is a sin upon those who commit this action.

Our duty is to bid the right and forbid the wrong, but if they did not follow it, their sin would not be upon us. The Qur’anic term /wizr/ means the heaviness and a load. The Arabic word /muthqalah/ means the weight of a load. The word /himl/ refers to the load on the back while /haml/ refers to the load in the womb.[^2] This Qur’anic sentence: “And no one laden bears the burden of another…” is one of the basic fundamentals in Islamic convictions.

In fact, on one side, it relates to the justice of Allah that He counts everybody pledged in his own action, rewards his righteous efforts and endeavours, and gives retribution for his sins. On the other side, it points to the severity of the divine punishment on the Day of Hereafter when nobody agrees to carry the burden of the sin of another person, even though he had been fond of him extraordinarily.

Being attentive to this meaning has a great effect in man’s self-improvement, because whoever is careful of himself he never tends to corruption with the pretext that his entourage or his environment is polluted. He does not count the pollution of the environment as a justification for his own pollution, because everybody carries his own burden.