Website: www.aaiil.uk

No one can bear responsibility for someone else’s actions

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 3 July 2026

“Say: Shall I seek a Lord other than Allah, while He is the Lord of all things? And no soul earns (evil) but against itself. Nor does a bearer of burden bear another’s burden. Then to your Lord is your return, so He will inform you of that in which you differed.” — ch. 6, Al-An‘ām, v. 164	قُلۡ اَغَیۡرَ اللّٰہِ اَبۡغِیۡ رَبًّا وَّ ہُوَ رَبُّ کُلِّ شَیۡءٍ ؕ وَ لَا تَکۡسِبُ کُلُّ نَفۡسٍ اِلَّا عَلَیۡہَا ۚ وَ لَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَۃٌ وِّزۡرَ اُخۡرٰی ۚ ثُمَّ اِلٰی رَبِّکُمۡ مَّرۡجِعُکُمۡ فَیُنَبِّئُکُمۡ بِمَا کُنۡتُمۡ فِیۡہِ تَخۡتَلِفُوۡنَ ﴿۱۶۴﴾
“Whoever goes aright, goes aright only for the good of his own soul; and whoever goes astray, goes astray only to its detriment. And no bearer of a burden can bear the burden of another. …” — ch. 17, Banī Isrā’īl, v. 15	مَنِ اہۡتَدٰی فَاِنَّمَا یَہۡتَدِیۡ لِنَفۡسِہٖ ۚ وَ مَنۡ ضَلَّ فَاِنَّمَا یَضِلُّ عَلَیۡہَا ؕ وَ لَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَۃٌ وِّزۡرَ اُخۡرٰی ؕ …

This principle, that “no bearer of a burden can bear the burden of another”, is repeated three more times in the Quran (35:18, 39:7 and 53:38) in the same words: lā taziru wāzirat-un wizra ukhrā. The word wāzirah means ‘bearer of a burden’. The well-known word wazīr, meaning a government minister, is related to it because a minister bears the burden of duties of the state. The most glaring example of violating this principle is the Christian doctrine that the burden of mankind’s sins was placed on Jesus, the son of God, to take it away from people, and Jesus through his suffering on the cross suffered the punishment for everyone’s sins, and that all those who accept that he died for their sins are relieved of the responsibility for their own sins of the past and future. Although this doctrine is presented in these words, it is doubtful that any righteous, decent Christian takes it practically and actually feels in his heart that he is not responsible and accountable for his sins.

This example I have given is not the only example of violating this principle. There is also the reliance on priests to get your sins forgiven. Among Muslims there are people who believe that some holy man, pir, or spiritual leader can save them from being held accountable before Allah for their sins. It is believed that because of his holiness and high status in God’s eyes, all those who follow him will be forgiven their sins by Allah. About this attitude, Dr Basharat Ahmad writes: “These spiritual leaders, pirs and khalifas then teach their followers: You don’t need to worry about what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. That is our job. Only we possess that knowledge. Your work is to obey all our commands blindly, like an object in our hands.”

The first verse I recited tells us first that “no soul earns (evil) but against itself.” The wrongdoing that one person has committed cannot be laid at someone else’s door. Sometimes others may have had a role in influencing or encouraging or instructing a person to do wrong. They will be held responsible for their part, but the wrongdoer, if it is an adult possessing understanding, is also responsible for his actions. The verse goes on to say that in the end God will judge and will distribute responsibility justly.

The second verse that I have read, 17:15, tells us that the person who walks on the right path and performs good deeds, brings benefit to his own soul, to his character. The person who goes on the wrong path and commits misdeeds damages his own soul and character. Immediately before this verse God says in the Quran:

“And We have made every human being’s actions to cling to his neck, and We shall bring forth to him on the day of Resurrection a book which he will find wide open. Read your book. Your own soul is sufficient as a reckoner against you this day.” (17:13–14)

A person’s actions, good or bad, cling to him. They cannot be detached from him and put on to someone else. After death, he will see this record fully open, and he himself will be asked to judge his record by reading it.

The burdens on people mentioned in these verses are, firstly, their duty of walking on the right path, and secondly the burden of any wrongdoing which they have committed. We are not talking about general problems and burdens of life that we can share with others, about which there is the saying that a problem shared is a problem halved. To walk on the right path takes effort to do it. No one can place his burden of this duty on someone else. You cannot shirk your duty of prayer, fasting, charity and doing good to people by passing on your duty to someone else to do it for you. Each human being is also burdened by the weight of the wrong things he or she has done. He is carrying around with him the burden of guilt and shame and culpability. He cannot relieve himself of this burden by placing it on someone else to bear. He has to make amends for it himself, and to seek forgiveness from God, and if his misdeeds have harmed other people then it is a priority for him to ask forgiveness from those people and to practically undo the harm to them that he has done. Regarding the kind of burdens we are talking about, each person should take care of his own burdens, not pass them on to others because they have their own burdens to carry.

In one place in the Quran where this expression occurs, i.e., “that no bearer of burden bears another’s burden”, it is followed by the words:

“and that man can have nothing but what he strives for.” (53:39)

This further emphasises the same point. In our worldly lives and our religious lives, we cannot gain anything without striving or working for it. In the religious sense what it means is that you cannot achieve anything by putting your duty, which you should be carrying out, on to someone else. And this applies both to the duty of doing good and the duty of seeking forgiveness for having done something wrong. For example, when we ask someone to pray for us, it doesn’t mean that he prays instead of us and is relieving us of our duty of prayer. His prayers for us are only assisting our own prayers for us.

In another place in the Quran this expression occurs as follows:

“And no bearer of a burden can bear another’s burden. And if one weighed down by a burden calls another to carry his load, nothing of it will be carried, even though he be near of kin (i.e., close relative).” (35:18)

In this world, of course, and especially in Muslim countries and societies, it is common to see that if a person wants to get a job or to pass an exam, and he has a relative who has some influence with the interview board or the course examiners, then that person asks his relative to help him to get an unfair advantage over others. The relative may well succeed, but that person will not be deserving of the job or of the qualification, and will not have the feeling of satisfaction for a personal achievement. It will also be a great injustice to others who may have deserved more to succeed but did not do so only because they didn’t have anyone to make approaches on their behalf.

An even more serious example is that a person charged with a crime, and guilty of it, may have a close relative who is wealthy or holds a high position, and that relative may be able to have the charge dropped or get him a lighter punishment. But the burden of guilt will still remain in his mind. So even in this world, getting others to carry your load or to remove it from your shoulders, only works in a superficial way. When God will judge us, this method of course will not work at all. We should not be doing something in this world which cannot work in the hereafter. If in this world we are used to calling on others to step in and help us unfairly, we will be lost in the hereafter when we find ourselves helpless.

This verse mentioned close relatives. There is another verse of the Quran which addresses the Holy Prophet Muhammad as follows:

“And warn your nearest relations.” (26:214)

The Holy Prophet was a “warner” or nadhīr to all people, to warn them of the consequences of following the wrong path. He is told by God here that this includes his own relatives. In this world, when someone reaches a high worldly position, such as becoming the leader of a country, usually it is good news for his relatives because they can now expect to receive all kinds of favours. They are congratulated by other people for being so lucky, because all sorts of doors will now open for them. But the Holy Prophet does the opposite. He doesn’t say to his relatives that now I have been made a prophet by God, be happy and rejoice because I can get your sins forgiven and get you free entry into paradise. On the contrary, he issues warnings to his relatives just as he does to anyone else.

It is reported in Hadith that when this verse was revealed to the Holy Prophet at Makkah, then that famous incident took place that he stood on top of the Safa hill and called the various tribes of the Quraish to gather. He then asked them: If I told you there was an army of your enemies on the other side of the hill, waiting to attack you, would you believe me? They said: Yes, because we have always found you speaking the truth. Then he told them that he was sent as a warner to them of a great punishment if they continued in their evil ways. (Bukhari, hadith 4770).

This part is well known, even to children. But it is also reported in Hadith that the Holy Prophet, standing on that hill, addressed by name his own tribe, Quraish, his own kinsmen the Abd Manāf, and his close relatives, and warned them to do good deeds to save themselves from God’s punishment. He said:

“O people of Quraish … I cannot save you from Allah’s punishment at all; O Bani Abd Manāf! I cannot save you from Allah’s punishment at all; O Abbās, son of Abdul Muttalib! I cannot save you from Allah’s punishment at all; O Safiya, Aunt of Allah’s Messenger! I cannot save you from Allah’s punishment at all; O Fatima, daughter of Muhammad! Ask me anything from my money, but I cannot save you from Allah’s punishment at all.” (Bukhari, hadith 2753)

If these people do wrong, they cannot avert God’s punishment from themselves by pleading that they are close relatives of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. They cannot shift their own burden on to him. As Fatima’s father, because of this physical relationship, the Holy Prophet can help her with his own money, but forgiveness from God and protection from God’s punishment is not something he can hand out to her. No doubt, he can warn and guide his relatives, as he is doing, but what they choose to do is up to them and they will have to bear the consequences.

There is another hadith in which the Holy Prophet has mentioned that on the Day of Judgment there would be certain Muslims who would be carrying, in a visible form, the burdens of neglecting certain good deeds in this life, and they will call to him for help, saying: “O Muhammad.” He said he will give them the reply:

“I can do nothing for you. I had conveyed to you the message.” (Bukhari, hadith 1402)

Unfortunately, anyone looking at Muslim societies and countries will get the impression that Islam does not give any such teachings about a person’s own responsibility for his actions and that it has nothing to say about unfair favouritism and nepotism. Those qualities were taken up in Western countries because they realized that these are the means of achieving success for the whole nation. Let us pray that Muslims also return to these values of the Quran and the Holy Prophet Muhammad — Ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk