Surah 7. Al-A'raf, Ayah 38

The terms "first" and "last" refer here either to a sequence in time ("those who came earlier" and "those who came later") or in status ("leaders" and "followers"); and in both cases they relate, as the next sentence indicates, to the evil influence which the former exerted on the latter during their lifetime - either directly, as leaders of thought and persons of distinction, or indirectly, as forerunners in time, whose example was followed by later generations.

Lit., "to everyone a double [suffering]": i.e., for having gone astray and for having, by his example, led others astray. Cf. 16:25 - "on Resurrection Day they shall bear the full weight of their own burdens, as well as some of the burdens of those ignorant ones whom they have led astray".

The earlier generations committed a double crime: (1) their own sins, (2) the bad example they set for those that followed. We are responsible not only for our own misdeeds, but for those which our example and our teaching to our juniors may induce them to commit. But it does not lie in the mouth of the juniors to ask for a double punishment for seniors: the motive is not justice, but pure spite, which is itself a sin. Further, the later generations have to answer for two things: (1) their own sins, and (2) their failure to learn from the past, from the experiences of those who preceded them. -They should have an advantage in this respect, being "in the foremost files of Time," but they did not learn. Thus there was nothing to choose between the earlier and later generations in the matter of guilt. But how few people understand this! In vi. 160, we were told that good was rewarded tenfold, but evil was punished according to its guilt, in perfect justice. This verse is in no way inconsistent with it. Two crimes must have a double penalty.