Surah 28. Al-Qasas, Ayah 63

I.e., "we did not lead them astray out of malice, but simply because we ourselves had been led astray by our predecessors". This "answer" is, of course, evasive, but it is quoted here to show that man's attachment to false -but, nevertheless, almost deified - values and concepts based on stark materialism is, more often than not, a matter of "social continuity": in other words, the validity of those materialistic pseudo-values is taken for granted simply because they are time-honoured, with every generation blindly subscribing to the views held by their forebears. In its deepest sense, this passage - as so many similar ones throughout the Qur'an - points to the moral inadmissibility of accepting an ethical or intellectual proposition as true on no other grounds than that it was held to be true by earlier generations.

In other words, they were but wont to worship their own passions and desires projected onto extraneous beings. See in this connection 10:28 and the corresponding notes, especially note [46] also 34:41 and note [52].

I.e., in the very fact of God's calling them to account (cf. 27:82 and the corresponding note [73]). As the sequence shows, the persons thus addressed are the "leaders of thought" supposed to have set the community's faulty standards of social behaviour and moral valuation; and since they are primarily responsible for the wrong direction which their followers have taken, they will be the first to suffer in the life to come.

This and the next verse are concerned with the examination of those who neglected truth and righteousness and went after the worship of false gods. These were the "partners" they associated with Allah. In so far as they were embodied in false or wicked leaders, the leaders will disown responsibility for them. 'We ourselves went wrong, and they followed our example, because it suited them: they worshipped, not us, but their own lusts.'

Cf. x. 28 False worship often names others, but really it is the worship of Self. The others whom they name will have nothing to do with them when the awful Penalty stands in the sight of both. Then each wrong-doer will have to look to his own case. The wicked will then realise the gravity of the situation and wish that they had accepted the true guidance of Allah's Messengers.