لَّن تُغْنِىَ عَنْهُمْ أَمْوَٰلُهُمْ وَلَآ أَوْلَٰدُهُم مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ شَيْـًٔا أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ أَصْحَٰبُ ٱلنَّارِ هُمْ فِيهَا خَٰلِدُونَ
Lan tughniya ʿanhum amwāluhum wa lā awlāduhum mina'llāhi shayʾā, ulāʾika aṣḥābu'n-nāri hum fīhā khālidūn
"Neither their property nor their children will avail them anything against God. They are the companions of the fire; they will remain in it."
These two words frequently occur side by side in the Qurʾān, and almost every time they do the same work: they name the two supports that make a person feel secure.
- Property — power in the present. The means to buy, to influence, to protect.
- Children — power and continuity in the future. The continuation of his name, a support in old age, weight within the tribe.
That is, one provides a horizontal security (present influence), the other a vertical one (continuation through time). When the two come together, everything a person needs in order to count himself sufficient is complete.
تُغْنِىَ — Root: غ-ن-ي. Ghinā: wealth, freedom from need. Ighnāʾ (Form IV, ifʿāl): to make someone free from need, to suffice, to avail. Ghaniyy: the one who has need of nothing.
That the verb is chosen from this root is meaningful: property and children claim to make their owner ghanī (free from need). The verse rejects this claim — using the word's own root.
This verse must be read together with Sūrat al-Humaza, because the psychology of the same supposition was analysed there.
Al-Humaza 104/3: يَحْسَبُ أَنَّ مَالَهُۥٓ أَخْلَدَهُۥ — "he supposes that his property has made him everlasting."
The finding established there was this: beneath accumulation lies a search for immortality; property is supposed to be a buffer against death.
Al-Mujādala 58/17 rejects the same supposition by carrying it over to what comes after death. And note: the verb used in al-Humaza and the verb used in the next verse of this sūra are the same — yaḥsabu / yaḥsabūna. The two sūras name the same mental operation: supposing.
And the word khālidūn completes the irony here. The man in al-Humaza supposed that his property had made him akhlada (everlasting) — the same root خ-ل-د. In this verse everlastingness is genuinely granted, but in the fire: هُمْ فِيهَا خَٰلِدُونَ.
That is, the thing sought is found; with its place changed. This is a structure the Qurʾān often uses: not the rejection of the demand but the granting of its counterpart in another place.
There is a third link as well: at al-Muddaththir 74/12-13 it is said "I gave him extended property and sons before his eyes" — the same pair, counted this time as a favour. The three verses together: property and children are given (al-Muddaththir), immortality is supposed (al-Humaza), it avails nothing at the reckoning (al-Mujādala).