On that Day it will not profit you in the least [to know] that, since you have sinned [together], you are now to share your suffering [as well].
34
Asad Translation Note Number :
I.e., "you will not be consoled, as would have been the case in earthly suffering, by the knowledge that you are not to suffer alone" (Zamakhshari, Razi, Baydawi). Since this address is formulated in the plural and not in the dual, it evidently relates to all sinners who, in their lifetime, were impelled by their own evil impulses - their "other selves", as it were - to "remain blind to the remembrance of God". In its wider meaning, the above verse implies that all evil deeds, whenever and wherever committed, are but links of one chain, one evil ineluctably leading to another: cf. 14:49 - "on that Day thou wilt see those who were lost in sin linked together (muqarranin) in fetters" - a phrase which has been explained in my corresponding note [64]. It is noteworthy that the participle mugarran is derived from the same verbal root (qarana) as the term qarin (rendered by me in verses {36} and {38} of this surah and in 41:25 as "other self"): and this, I believe, is a further indication, alluded to in the present verse, to the "togetherness" of all evil deeds.
