يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ عَلَيْكُمْ أَنفُسَكُمْ ۖ لَا يَضُرُّكُم مَّن ضَلَّ إِذَا ٱهْتَدَيْتُمْ
"O you who believe! Look to yourselves. The one who strays cannot harm you so long as you are rightly guided."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sūra's own verses: this verse is not read as a verse legitimising withdrawing from the prevention of evil — because the same sūra had openly reproached exactly the opposite in two places:
| 5/63 | Law lā yanhāhumu'r-rabbāniyyūna wa'l-aḥbār — why do the scholars not restrain them |
|---|---|
| 5/79 | Kānū lā yatanāhawna ʿan munkarin faʿalūh — they did not restrain one another |
Both verses are inside the same sūra, and between lā yatanāhawn and ʿalaykum anfusakum there are only twenty-six verses.
It is widely recorded in classical exegesis that the condition of ihtidāʾ (being rightly guided) in this verse includes enjoining the right as well. That is, "look to yourselves" does not mean "leave others alone"; it means if you have done what you had to do, another's straying is not written to your account.
This reading is preferred in this commentary on the ground of the sūra's own internal qualifications — and the preference is stated openly.
إِلَى ٱللَّهِ مَرْجِعُكُمْ جَمِيعًا فَيُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ — and the sentence closes by saying that responsibility is tied to an individual reckoning.