Surah 50. Qaf, Ayah 27

Lit., "him" or "it" - referring to man's faculty of conscious, controlling reason (shahid).

Lit., as in verse {23}, "his intimate companion" (qarin): but whereas there it may be taken as denoting man's moral consciousness or reason (cf. note [15] above), in the present instance the "speaker" is obviously its counterpart, namely, the complex of the sinner's instinctive urges and inordinate, unrestrained appetitites summarized in the term sa'iq ("that which drives") and often symbolized as shaytan ("satan" or "satanic force": see Razi's remarks quoted in note [31] on 14:22 .) In this sense, the term qarin has the same connotation as in 41:25 and 43:36 .

I.e., man's evil impulses and appetites cannot gain ascendancy unless his conscious mind goes astray from moral verities: and this explains the purport, in the present context, of verses {24-25} above.

See last note. But some people understand by "Companion" here an evil associate in the world, an evil one who misled.

Our Lord. One man speaks: "I did not", etc. Yet he uses the plural pronoun in saying, "Our Lord". This is beautifully appropriate, as he is speaking so as to include the person to be judged: as if he were to say. "Thou art my Lord, or the Lord of us angels or of all Creation, but Thou art his Lord also, for Thou didst cherish him and warn him, and he owed duties to Thee."

Neither the Recording Angels nor the misused limbs and faculties, nor anything else whatever was responsible for the Evil: it was the personal responsibility of the Doer himself, with his free-will.