Tafseer of The Forgiver · Ghafir · 40:71
When the shackles are around their necks and the chains; they will be dragged
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.
His statement: فَسَوْفَ يَعْلَمُونَ إِذِ الأغْلالُ فِي أَعْنَاقِهِمْ وَالسَّلاسِلُ ("Then they will know, when the iron collars are around their necks, and the chains"). This is a threat from Allah to the polytheists (mushrikīn). He, exalted is His praise, says: then these people who dispute concerning the signs of Allah and who deny the Book will know the truth of that about which you inform them, O Muḥammad, and the correctness of that which they today reject from this Book, at the moment when the iron collars and the chains are placed around their necks in Hell (jahannam).
I have read this according to the reading of the cities: "wa-l-salāsilu," in the nominative (rafʿ), whereby it is joined (ʿaṭf) to "al-aghlāl" according to the meaning I have set forth. And it has been related from Ibn ʿAbbās that he read it as "wa-l-salāsila yusḥabūn" ("and the chains, they are dragged"), with the accusative (naṣb) of "al-salāsil," in the boiling water (al-ḥamīm). And it has also been related from him that he used to say: it is in fact "wa-hum fī l-salāsili yusḥabūn" ("and they are dragged in the chains"). But the scholars of Arabic do not permit the genitive (khafḍ) of the noun when the governing preposition has been omitted.
Some of them said concerning this: if someone who imagines this were to say that the meaning is merely "idh aʿnāquhum fī l-aghlāli wa-l-salāsili yusḥabūn" ("when their necks are in the collars and the chains, they are dragged"), then the genitive in "al-salāsil" would be permissible according to this doctrine. And he said: a comparable case, in which something is referred back to the meaning, is the saying of the poet:
"The serpents have already reconciled the foot with him, the male viper and the speckled venomous snake (al-shujāʿ al-arqam)."
He placed "al-shujāʿ" and "al-ḥayyāt" (the serpents) in the accusative, although these were previously in the nominative, because the meaning is: "his foot reconciled the serpents and they reconciled him." When he needed the accusative for the rhyme at the end of the verse, he made the action proceeding from the foot fall upon the serpents.
And the correct reading, in our view, is that upon which the reciters of the cities rely, on account of the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the proof upon it, and that is the nominative of "al-salāsil," whereby it is joined to that which is implied in His statement فِي أَعْنَاقِهِمْ ("around their necks") as a mention of the collars.
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Footnotes:
(2) The two verses belong to the shortened rajaz metre (al-Lisān: shajaʿa). Al-shujāʿ means: the serpent, and in the narration it states: "The treasure of one of them will come on the Day of Resurrection as a bald serpent (shujāʿ aqraʿ)." Al-Aḥmar recited: "Qad sālama l-ḥayyāt … " (the two verses). He placed al-shujāʿ and al-afʿuwān in the accusative according to the meaning of the sentence, for when the serpents have reconciled the foot, then the foot has reconciled them, as though he said: "the foot reconciled the serpents"; he then made al-afʿuwān an appositive of it. End of citation. And al-Farrāʾ said in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (folio 289): he placed al-shujāʿ and al-ḥayyāt in the accusative, although these were previously in the nominative, because the meaning is "his foot reconciled the serpents and they reconciled him." When he needed the accusative for the rhyme, he made the action proceeding from the foot fall upon the serpents. End of citation.
