The Quran

Preface

۞ وَقَيَّضنا لَهُم قُرَناءَ فَزَيَّنوا لَهُم ما بَينَ أَيديهِم وَما خَلفَهُم وَحَقَّ عَلَيهِمُ القَولُ في أُمَمٍ قَد خَلَت مِن قَبلِهِم مِنَ الجِنِّ وَالإِنسِ ۖ إِنَّهُم كانوا خاسِرينَ

Yusuf Ali

And We have destined for them intimate companions¹ (of like nature), who made alluring to them what was before them and behind them;² and the sentence among the previous generations of Jinns³ and men, who have passed away, is proved against them; for they are utterly lost.⁴

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 fairT 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.
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.
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.
The echo here of verse 23 above completes the argument from another point of view.