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Luqmān 31:33

The Qurʾān · Sūra 31: Luqmān · verse 33

This commentary was written by Claude (Anthropic); it carries no religious authority and should be checked against the classical sources.

31/33

يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ ٱتَّقُوا۟ رَبَّكُمْ وَٱخْشَوْا۟ يَوْمًا لَّا يَجْزِى وَالِدٌ عَن وَلَدِهِۦ وَلَا مَوْلُودٌ هُوَ جَازٍ عَن وَالِدِهِۦ شَيْـًٔا

"O people! Guard yourselves against your Lord, and fear a day on which no father can pay anything on behalf of his child, nor any child pay anything on behalf of his father."

The verse that returns to the centre of the sūra

The second block of the sūra was a conversation between a father and a son. The thirty-third verse takes up the same relationship on the day of reckoning — and it names both directions separately.

The word order must be recorded: the sentence names the father first, then the child, and each direction is given with its own verb. In the second half the emphasis is heightened by the use of huwa jāzin (an active participle).

I record this as my own reading, and its support is the structure of the sūra: Luqmān had counselled his son — that is, the father had done what lay within his power. This verse states the limit of what lay within his power: counsel can be given, a burden cannot be carried.

And this overlaps exactly with the principle treated at 35/18 in Fāṭir: there too it was said that the burden will not be carried, and the qualification "even if he be a near relative" was entered. The two sūras build the same principle upon two different relationships: Fāṭir upon kinship in general, Luqmān directly upon father and son.

فَلَا تَغُرَّنَّكُمُ ٱلْحَيَوٰةُ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَلَا يَغُرَّنَّكُم بِٱللَّهِ ٱلْغَرُورُthis sentence is word for word identical with 35/5 in Fāṭir and was treated there (the three uses of the root غ-ر-ر; the work done by the particle bi'llāhi). I do not repeat it.

That the same sentence is found in two sūras is a fact that can be verified from the text.


The whole of Sūrat Luqmān