﴿ تِلْكَ أُمَّةٌۭ قَدْ خَلَتْ ۖ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَلَكُم مَّا كَسَبْتُمْ ۖ وَلَا تُسْـَٔلُونَ عَمَّا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ ﴾

“Now those people have passed away; unto them shall be accounted what they have earned, and unto you, what you have earned; and you will not be, judged on the strength of what they did.”

Attaching oneself to saints and prophets, living or dead, lulls one into a false sense of security. It leads one to imagine that just as one has been attached to them in this life, one will remain attached to them in the next. It makes one feel that their surplus of good deeds will make up for one’s own shortcomings. The People of the Book were immersed in this form of wishful thinking to the extent that they had invented a dogma of ancestral salvation, pinning all their hopes on the holiness of their elders. But it is sheer self-deception to think that one person will receive the reward of another’s actions. In reality, everyone will reap the rewards, and bear the burden of punishment for his own actions. No one will be made to share in the reward, or punishment, which is awarded to another by virtue of his actions on earth. One who submits to God finds that he has to face all kinds of difficulties in this life. His worldly hopes and ambitions will not necessarily be fulfilled. Yet one who is firm in the faith will not be put off by adversity; he will persevere, making sure that he leaves this world as a believer, so that he can look forward to God’s blessings in the next world.