مَّنِ ٱهْتَدَىٰ فَإِنَّمَا يَهْتَدِى لِنَفْسِهِۦ ۖ وَمَن ضَلَّ فَإِنَّمَا يَضِلُّ عَلَيْهَا ۚ وَلَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ أُخْرَىٰ ۗ وَمَا كُنَّا مُعَذِّبِينَ حَتَّىٰ نَبْعَثَ رَسُولًا
Manihtadaa fa innamaa yahtadee linafsihee wa man dalla fa innamaa yadillu 'alaihaa; wa laa taziru waaziratunw wizra ukhraa; wa maa kunnaa mu'azzibeena hatta nab'asa Rasoola
Whoever accepts guidance does so for his own good; whoever strays does so at his own peril. No soul will bear another’s burden, nor do We punish until We have sent a messenger.
Whoever is guided is guided only for the good of his own soul, and whoever strays, strays only against it. No soul shall bear the burden of another. And we do not punish until we have sent a messenger.
The last clause carries most of the weight here, and theologians have argued over it for centuries: whether a person who never received a message is accountable at all, and whether unaided reason establishes anything before revelation arrives. Ashʿarī and Muʿtazilī schools answered that differently and the question stayed open. Coming straight after the image of a record fastened to the neck, the passage keeps the accounting personal.