“They will certainly carry their own burdens and other burdens besides their own. They will assuredly be called to account on the Day of Resurrection concerning the fabrications which they contrived.”
(Al Qur’ān – 29:13)
In the Day of Judgementnot only will the unbelievers be punished for straying from the Truth, but they will also be taken to task for misleading others.Let us, for example, consider that one commits a theft and asks another to be his accomplice in the crime. Now, the latter will not be acquitted on the mere plea that he so thieved at someone else’s behest. He will be duly punished for his crime, for it is against the dictates of justice that he be exonerated and the instigator be punished in his place. The instigator, however, will receive a double punishment – for his own misdeed as well as for leading another stray.
As for fabrications, they say that if one commits a crime at someone else’s behest, the former will be exonerated on the grounds that he committed the sin at someone else’s instigation and, hence, the latter will be made to bear the entire burden of the sin. Secondly, they falsely promised that they would bear responsibility on behalf of those who reverted from true faith to unbelief. On the Day of Judgement when, contrary to their expectations, they will come face to face with Hell, they will not be at all willing to suffer for the sins of those whom they misled in this world in addition to suffering from their own unbelief.