The Guiding Light — Page 339
S u rah al-Baqarah, Verse 255-258 339 Messengers; for on that day nothing but one’s own deeds would count. As a criminal can count on four possible means of securing his release, God has mentioned all those means and has made it clear that none of them will avail him on the Day of Reckoning. The first idea that comes to the mind of a culprit is to prove that the offence alleged to have been committed by him was legally not committed by him at all. It was either committed by somebody else or, if it was in fact committed by him, it was committed at the instigation of another person, or another person undertook to shoulder his burden. Thus the culprit tries to secure his release by throwing the blame or the responsibility on somebody else. In view of this plea, the Qur’ a n says that (on the Day of Judgement) no soul shall serve as a substitute for another soul. If a person is really sinful, the blame will surely lie on his own head and will by no means be shifted to another person. Everyone will bear his own cross and there will be no atonement in the sense of one man serving as a substitute for another. The second possible way of escape when a criminal fails to shift the responsibility to another person, is for him either