The Quran

Preface

قالَ ادخُلوا في أُمَمٍ قَد خَلَت مِن قَبلِكُم مِنَ الجِنِّ وَالإِنسِ فِي النّارِ ۖ كُلَّما دَخَلَت أُمَّةٌ لَعَنَت أُختَها ۖ حَتّىٰ إِذَا ادّارَكوا فيها جَميعًا قالَت أُخراهُم لِأولاهُم رَبَّنا هٰؤُلاءِ أَضَلّونا فَآتِهِم عَذابًا ضِعفًا مِنَ النّارِ ۖ قالَ لِكُلٍّ ضِعفٌ وَلٰكِن لا تَعلَمونَ

Yusuf Ali

He will say: “Enter ye in the company of the peoples who passed away before you - men and jinns, - into the Fire.” Every time a new people enters, it curses its sister-people (that went before), until they follow each other, all into the Fire. Saith the last about the first: “Our Lord! it is these that misled us: so give them a double penalty in the Fire.” He will say: “Doubled¹ for all” : but this ye do not understand.

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! (Cf. 11:20, 25:69, 33:68, and 38:61).
In 6:160, 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. (R).