We placed at their disposal ˹evil˺ associates who made their past and future ˹misdeeds˺ appealing to them.5 ˹So˺ the fate of earlier communities of jinn and humans has been justified against them ˹as well˺, ˹for˺ they were truly losers.
And We have destined for them intimate companions 4492 (of like nature), who made alluring to them what was before them and behind them; 4493 and the sentence among the previous generations of Jinns 4494 and men, who have passed away, is proved against them; for they are utterly lost. 4495
4492 Just as the idea of happiness in heaven is expressed, not only by individual satisfaction, but by congenial society, so the idea of Punishment in hell is deepened by the fact that Evil will be made to meet evil: those who made sin fair- seeming in this life will be there to share in the regrets and mutual recriminations which will make life a burden. In fact, in these Ha Mim verses, the idea of fit companionship for the Good and uncongenial company for the Evil, runs like a thread throughout. See Introduction to S. 40.
4493 They painted in glowing colours the pleasures of sin in the past and the pleasure of sin in the future, thus practising a double deception, which will now be found out.
4494 Jinns: see n. 929 to 6:100. All spirits of wickedness and all men who submitted to them, in the past, were under one common sentence; and future generations who embrace evil will also join them. Cf. 6:128.
4495 The echo here of verse 23 above completes the argument from another point of view.
for [when they became oblivious of Us,] We assigned to them [their own evil impulses as their] other selves, 24 and these made appear goodly to them whatever lay open before them and whatever was beyond their ken. 25 And so, the sentence [of doom] will have fallen due upon them together with the [other sinful] communities of invisible beings 26 and humans that passed away before their time: verily, they [all] will indeed be lost!
24 Or: "soul-mates" (cf. 4:38 ). The verb qarana, from which the noun qarin is derived, signifies "he linked" or "intimately associated" or "yoked together [one thing with another]". Cf. 43:36 - "as for anyone who chooses to remain blind to the remembrance of the Most Gracious, to him We assign an [enduring] evil impulse [lit., "a Satan"], to become his other self".
25 Lit., "that which was between their hands and that which was behind them": i.e., their own evil impulses (which had become their "other selves", as it were) made alluring to them the unrestrained enjoyment, without any moral discrimination, of all the worldly attractions which lay open before them, causing them, at the same time, to dismiss as an illusion the idea of resurrection and of God’s judgment - thus giving them a false sense of security with regard to something that was beyond their ken.
26 For this rendering - and the meaning - of the term jinn, see Appendix III.
5 i.e., associating others with Allah in worship and denying the Hereafter. See 43:36-37.