Tafseer of The Mount · At-Tur · 52:11
Then woe, that Day, to the deniers,
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 statement, exalted is He: فَوَيْلٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ لِلْمُكَذِّبِينَ ("So woe on that Day to the deniers") (52:11)
He, exalted is His mention, says: the valley that flows with festering matter and pus in Hell (jahannam), on the Day when the heaven will shake violently — and that is the Day of Resurrection — is for the deniers who reject the descent of Allah's punishment upon the disbelievers, on the Day when the heaven will shake violently. Some of the grammarians of Basra said: the fāʾ ("so") is inserted in His statement فَوَيْلٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ ("So woe on that Day") because it carries the meaning of "when it is such and such," and it thus resembles a conditional requital (mujāzāt), for in a mujāzāt the second clause of the sentence comes with the fāʾ. Some of the grammarians of Kufa said: the temporal expressions are all conditional when they pertain to the future, and this belongs to that category, for they have compared "inna" — which is the basic form of the condition — to "ḥīn" ("when"). And he said: with "yawm" ("day") a verb has been omitted, even though the interpretation is conditional, because the case inflection (iʿrāb) proceeds from the outward form of the words, even though the meaning is conditional.
