Tafseer of Hud · Hud · 11:105
The Day it comes no soul will speak except by His permission. And among them will be the wretched and the prosperous.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The explanation of the words of Allah the Exalted: يَوْمَ يَأْتِ لا تَكَلَّمُ نَفْسٌ إِلا بِإِذْنِهِ فَمِنْهُمْ شَقِيٌّ وَسَعِيدٌ (11:105)
("The day when it comes, no soul shall speak except with His permission; and among them are those who are wretched and those who are blessed.")
Abū Jaʿfar says: Allah, exalted be His remembrance, says: On the day when it comes — the Day of Resurrection, O mankind — and the Hour arrives, no soul shall speak except with the permission of its Lord.
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The reciters of the Qurʾān differed over the reading of the words: يَوْمَ يَأْتِي .
The majority of the reciters of Medina read this while retaining the yāʾ (i.e. yawma yaʾtī) in: يَوْمَ يَأْتِي لا تَكَلَّمُ نَفْسٌ .
Some reciters of Basra and some of Kufa read this while retaining the yāʾ in continuous reading (waṣl) and dropping it when pausing (waqf).
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A group of reciters of Kufa read this with the dropping of the yāʾ both in continuous reading and when pausing: يَوْمَ يَأْتِ لا تَكَلَّمُ نَفْسٌ إِلا بِإِذْنِهِ .
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Abū Jaʿfar says: The correct reading of this, in my view, is: يَوْمَ يَأْتِ , with the dropping of the yāʾ both in continuous reading and when pausing, in accordance with the written form of the muṣḥaf. This is moreover a well-known manner of speech of the tribe of Hudhayl; they say: "mā adrī mā taqūl" ("I do not know what you say"), and to this also pertains the verse of the poet:
Your two hands — one hand holds no dirham fast, out of generosity, and the other gives blood with the sword.
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It reads لا تَكَلَّمُ , whereas it would properly be "lā tatakallamu"; one of the two tāʾ letters has been dropped, because the remaining tāʾ suffices as an indication of the dropped tāʾ.
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As for His words: فَمِنْهُمْ شَقِيٌّ وَسَعِيدٌ — this means: among these souls who, on the Day of Resurrection, do not speak except with the permission of their Lord, there are wretched ones and there are blessed ones. The back-reference (with the plural "minhum") concerns the word "nafs" (soul), which is singular in form, but through the plural form "minhum shaqiyyun wa-saʿīdun" is construed as plural.
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Footnotes:
The poet of the cited verse is unknown to me.
The footnote about the poem refers to: Maʿānī al-Qurʾān of al-Farrāʾ in the comment on this verse; and the Arabic Dictionary (Lisān al-ʿArab), entry (lāqa): "mā yalīqu bi-kaffihi dirhamun" (with fatḥa on the yāʾ) means: it does not cling fast to his hand, it does not stay attached. The supplementary footnotes about "ḥashraja" (the sound that rolls in the throat without escaping), "al-suḥayl" (the sound that circulates in the chest of the donkey during braying), and the poem from the dīwān (p. 106) that describes the wild ass — these belonged to the supplementary notes in the printed edition.
