Tafseer of Explained in detail · Fussilat · 41:16
So We sent upon them a screaming wind during days of misfortune to make them taste the punishment of disgrace in the worldly life; but the punishment of the Hereafter is more disgracing, and they will not be helped.
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 His word, the Exalted: فَأَرْسَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ رِيحًا صَرْصَرًا فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ لِنُذِيقَهُمْ عَذَابَ الْخِزْيِ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَلَعَذَابُ الآخِرَةِ أَخْزَى وَهُمْ لا يُنْصَرُونَ ("So We sent upon them a screaming wind during ill-omened days, that We might make them taste the punishment of disgrace in the life of this world; and the punishment of the Hereafter is surely more disgracing, and they will not be helped") (41:16).
He, exalted is His mention, says: So We sent upon ʿĀd a screaming wind (rīḥan ṣarṣaran).
The people of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) differed concerning the meaning of "al-ṣarṣar." Some of them said: by it is meant that it was a violent wind.
* Mention of who said that:
Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, concerning His word رِيحًا صَرْصَرًا ("a screaming wind"), he said: violent.
Al-Ḥārith related to me, saying: al-Ḥasan related to us, saying: Warqāʾ related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid: رِيحًا صَرْصَرًا ("a screaming wind"): violent in its scorching heat (al-samūm) against them.
And others said: rather, by it is meant that it was cold.
* Mention of who said that:
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: فَأَرْسَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ رِيحًا صَرْصَرًا ("So We sent upon them a screaming wind"), he said: al-ṣarṣar: the cold wind.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us, saying: Ibn Thawr related to us, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His word رِيحًا صَرْصَرًا ("a screaming wind"), he said: cold.
Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Aḥmad related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī: رِيحًا صَرْصَرًا ("a screaming wind"), he said: cold, with sound.
It was related to me on the authority of al-Ḥusayn, saying: I heard Abū Muʿādh say: ʿUbayd related to us, saying: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk say, concerning His word رِيحًا صَرْصَرًا ("a screaming wind"), he says: a wind in which there was severe cold.
And the more correct of the two statements concerning this is the statement of Mujāhid, and that is because His word صَرْصَرًا is merely the sound of the wind when it blows with violence, so that one hears from it a sound like when someone says "ṣarra." Then, because of the doubling that is in the rāʾ, it was formed in this way; thereafter one of the rāʾ-sounds was changed into a ṣād because of the multiplicity of rāʾ-sounds, just as one makes from "raddada" "radrada," and from "nahha" "nahnaha," as Ruʾba said:
"Today I am brought to calm, and the best intellect is that which is not reckoned as folly."
And as one makes from "kaffafa" "kafkafa," as al-Nābigha said:
"I hold back a tear that my enemies have overwhelmed, and when I brought it to calm, it returned as choking grief (dhubāḥ)."
And it has been said: the river that is called "Ṣarṣar" is only so named because of the sound of the water that flows in it, and it is a form of the pattern "faʿlal" derived from "ṣarra," by analogy with the screaming wind (al-rīḥ al-ṣarṣar).
And His word: فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ ("during ill-omened days"). The people of interpretation differed concerning the interpretation of "al-naḥisāt." Some of them said: by it are meant the consecutive days.
* Mention of who said that:
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to me, saying: my father related to me, saying: my paternal uncle related to me, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His word: فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ ("during ill-omened days"), he said: consecutive days during which Allah sent down the punishment.
And others said: by it are meant the inauspicious (mashāʾīm) days.
* Mention of who said that:
Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us; and al-Ḥārith related to me, saying: al-Ḥasan related to us, saying: Warqāʾ related to us — both — on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, concerning His word: أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ ("ill-omened days"), he said: inauspicious.
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ ("during ill-omened days"): days, by Allah, that were inauspicious for the people.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us, saying: Ibn Thawr related to us, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatāda, he said: al-naḥisāt: the inauspicious, calamitous days.
Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Aḥmad ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī: فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ ("during ill-omened days"), he said: days that were inauspicious for them.
And others said: its meaning is: days full of evil.
* Mention of who said that:
Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: Ibn Zayd said concerning His word أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ ("ill-omened days"), he said: al-naḥs: evil; He sent upon them a wind of evil in which there was nothing of good.
And others said: al-naḥisāt: the violent days.
* Mention of who said that:
It was related to me on the authority of al-Ḥusayn, saying: I heard Abū Muʿādh say: ʿUbayd related to us, saying: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk say concerning His word فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ ("during ill-omened days"), he said: violent.
And the most correct of the statements concerning this is the statement of the one who said that by it are meant: inauspicious days full of evil omens, for that is the well-known meaning of "al-naḥs" in the language of the Arabs.
And the reciters differed concerning its recitation. The general body of reciters of the cities, with the exception of Nāfiʿ and Abū ʿAmr, read it as فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ with a kasra under the ḥāʾ; and Nāfiʿ and Abū ʿAmr read it as "naḥsāt" with a sukūn on the ḥāʾ. And Abū ʿAmr used, according to what has been related to us about him, to support his sukūn on the ḥāʾ by His word يَوْمِ نَحْسٍ مُسْتَمِرٍّ ("a day of continuous misfortune") (54:19), in which the ḥāʾ has a sukūn.
And the correct view concerning this is to say: they are two well-known recitations, with each of which learned reciters have recited, while their meanings agree, and that is because the moving of the ḥāʾ and the making of it quiescent in this case are two well-known dialects; one says "hādhā yawmu naḥsin" and "yawmu naḥisin," with a kasra under the ḥāʾ and with a sukūn. Al-Farrāʾ said: some of the Arabs recited to me:
"Inform Judhām and Lakhm that their brothers, Ṭayyiʾ and Bahrāʾ, are a people whose help is ill-omened (naḥis)."
And as for the sukūn, that is the word of Allah يَوْمِ نَحْسٍ ("a day of misfortune"); to that belongs the word of the rajaz-poet:
"Two days cloudy, and a day sunny, two stars of good fortune and a star of misfortune (naḥsā)."
So whoever in his dialect says يَوْمِ نَحْسٍ says "fī ayyāmin naḥsātin," and whoever in his dialect says "yawmi naḥisin" says فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ. And some said: al-naḥs, with a sukūn on the ḥāʾ, is misfortune itself, and the adding of the day to al-naḥs is merely an addition to misfortune; while al-naḥis, with a kasra under the ḥāʾ, is an attribute of the day, namely that it is ill-omened. For this reason it was said فِي أَيَّامٍ نَحِسَاتٍ ("during ill-omened days"), because they are inauspicious days.
And His word: لِنُذِيقَهُمْ عَذَابَ الْخِزْيِ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا ("that We might make them taste the punishment of disgrace in the life of this world"). He, exalted is His praise, says: and Our punishment of them in the Hereafter is more disgracing for them and more severe in ignominy and contempt. He says: and they — that is, ʿĀd — will, on the Day of Resurrection, when He punishes them, have no helper to help them against Allah, who would rescue them from it or take revenge for them.
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Footnotes:
(1) The two verses are in his dīwān (Leipzig edition, p. 166) and are nos. (19, 20). "Nahnahanī": he restrained me and held me back. He says this after he had grown old and weak. "Al-awwal": the returning. "Al-ḥilm": the intellect. "Al-sufah": that which is ascribed to folly. He says: I responded to the impulses of youth as long as I was young, but today, now that old age has overtaken me and my intellect that had departed from me has returned, my prudence and my reason have restrained me from recklessness, so that I do not do what I used to do in my youth.
(2) The author attributed the verse to al-Nābigha, but I have not found it in the dīwān, nor in the various commentaries on it. The meaning of "akfukifu al-ʿabra": I ward it off. And his word "ghalabat ʿudātī": that is, that they were intent upon my weeping through the evil they did to me, but my tear that I had held back overcame them; "nahnahtuhā": I held it back and warded it off. And "dhubāḥā": a choking grief. He means that he held back his tear, and that this holding back was like a choking because of the severity of the pain, for weeping relieves what blazes up in the soul of pain, anger, and the like. And the verse is, with the author, a proof that "kafkafa," "nahnaha," "ṣarṣar," and the like of the doubled four-letter verb are originally "kaffafa," "nahha," and "ṣarra," and that when three identical letters came together in them, one of the rāʾ-sounds was replaced by a letter of the type of the fāʾ of the word. And this is the doctrine of some of the Kufan grammarians, and Allah knows best.
(3) The verse belongs to the proof-verses of al-Farrāʾ in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (folio 289) concerning His word, the Exalted: في أيام نحسات ("during ill-omened days"). He said: the majority read it with doubling, with a kasra under the ḥāʾ. Some people of Medina read it lightened (with a sukūn on the ḥāʾ). He said: and I heard some of the Arabs recite: "Inform Judhām … (the verse)," and this is for whoever makes it heavy. And whoever lightens it bases it on His word في يوم نحس مستمر ("on a day of continuous misfortune"). And in (al-Lisān: naḥasa): Abū ʿAmr read فأرسلنا عليهم ريحا صرصرا في أيام نحسات with a sukūn on the ḥāʾ. Al-Azharī said: it is the plural of "ayyām naḥisa," then the plural of the plural (with a sukūn on the ḥāʾ in both cases). And I read "fī ayyāmin naḥisātin" (with a kasra under the ḥāʾ), and they are the inauspicious days for them, in both forms. End of quotation.
(4) The two verses belong to the shortened rajaz meter, and we do not know its poet. The author adduced them as proof that al-naḥs has two dialect forms: a sukūn on the ḥāʾ, as in this verse, and a kasra upon it, as in the preceding proof-verse. And according to these two dialect forms came the recitation of whoever read His word, the Exalted, في أيام نحسات ("during ill-omened days"); and this has already been discussed in connection with the preceding proof-verse.
