Tafseer of Consultation · Ash-Shura · 42:2
'Ayn, Seen, Qaf.
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.
We have already, concerning the meaning of this in particular, mentioned a statement from Ḥudhayfa, and that is what Aḥmad ibn Zuhayr related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Najda al-Ḥawṭī related to us, saying: Abū al-Mughīra ʿAbd al-Quddūs ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Ḥimṣī related to us, on the authority of Arṭāʾa ibn al-Mundhir, who said: a man came to Ibn ʿAbbās while Ḥudhayfa ibn al-Yamān was with him, and he said to him: inform me about the interpretation of the statement of Allah: حم * عسق ("Ḥā Mīm. ʿAyn Sīn Qāf"). He said: he bowed his head and then turned away from him. Then the man repeated his question, but he turned away and gave him no answer, and he disliked his question. Then he repeated it a third time, but he gave him no answer. Then Ḥudhayfa said to him: I will proclaim it to you; I have understood why he disliked it. It was revealed concerning a man from his household, who is called ʿAbd al-Ilāh or ʿAbd Allāh, who settles at one of the rivers of the East, upon which two cities are built, while the river splits them sharply in two. When Allah permits that their dominion should pass away and that their kingdom and their span of time should come to an end, then Allah sends down in the night upon one of those two cities a fire, so that in the morning it has become black and dark, entirely burnt, as though it had never existed in its place; and its counterpart (the other city) awakens in the morning amazed at how it escaped. It then lasts only for the clarity of that one day of hers, until there gathers in her every obstinate tyrant of them; then Allah causes her and them together to sink into the earth. That, then, is His statement: حم * عسق ("Ḥā Mīm. ʿAyn Sīn Qāf"), which means: a firm decree from Allah, a trial and a decree. Ḥā Mīm; ʿAyn: that means justice from Him; Sīn: that means "it shall be" (sa-yakūn); and Qāf: that means "it comes to pass" with those two cities.
And it is related from Ibn ʿAbbās that he used to read it as "Ḥā Mīm. Sīn Qāf" (حم. سق), without the ʿAyn, and he said: verily, the Sīn is the lifespan of every faction that there will be, and verily, the Qāf is every community that there will be; and he said: it was only ʿAlī who used to know the ʿAyn in it. And it is mentioned that it is thus (written) in the codex (muṣḥaf) of ʿAbd Allāh, in accordance with what is mentioned from Ibn ʿAbbās concerning his reading without the ʿAyn.
