Tafseer of The Sovereignty · Al-Mulk · 67:7
When they are thrown into it, they hear from it a [dreadful] inhaling while it boils up.
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.
And His word: إِذَا أُلْقُوا فِيهَا ("When they are cast into it") — by this is meant: when the unbelievers are cast into Hell (jahannam). سَمِعُوا لَهَا ("they hear of it") — by this is meant: of Hell. شَهِيقًا ("a braying") — by al-shahīq is meant: the sound that comes forth with force from deep within, like the sound of the donkey, as Ruʾba said in describing a donkey:
He rattled within himself with a wheeze, or he brayed loudly,
until it was said: he brays — while he was not braying (1).
And His word: وَهِيَ تَفُورُ ("while it boils up"). He says: it boils.
And in agreement with what we have said about this, the people of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) spoke.
* Mention of who said that:
Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Mihrān related to us, on the authority of Sufyān, on the authority of Mujāhid: سَمِعُوا لَهَا شَهِيقًا وَهِيَ تَفُورُ ("they hear of it a braying, while it boils up") — he says: it boils as the cooking pot boils.
The statement concerning the interpretation of His word, the Exalted: تَكَادُ تَمَيَّزُ مِنَ الْغَيْظِ كُلَّمَا أُلْقِيَ فِيهَا فَوْجٌ سَأَلَهُمْ خَزَنَتُهَا أَلَمْ يَأْتِكُمْ نَذِيرٌ (8) قَالُوا بَلَى قَدْ جَاءَنَا نَذِيرٌ فَكَذَّبْنَا وَقُلْنَا مَا نَزَّلَ اللَّهُ مِنْ شَيْءٍ إِنْ أَنْتُمْ إِلا فِي ضَلالٍ كَبِيرٍ (9) ("It nearly bursts apart with rage. Every time a group is cast into it, its keepers ask them: 'Did no warner come to you?' (8) They say: 'Yes indeed, a warner most certainly came to us, but we denied him and said: Allah has sent down nothing; you are only in great error' (9)").
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Footnotes:
(1) The two verses are in (the dīwān of Ruʾba al-Rādjiz, Leipzig edition 106). Ḥashradja al-ḥimār means: the donkey broke off its sound and repeated it in its throat. Al-saḥīl is a sound with hoarseness that circulates in the donkey's chest; likewise al-suḥāl with ḍamma. And al-shahīq is the braying of the donkey. Al-shahīq is also the drawing back of the breath, and al-zafīr is the expelling of the breath. Allah — Mighty and Exalted — said in describing the people of the Fire: لهم فيها زفير وشهيق ("for them therein is moaning and braying"). Al-Zadjdjādj said: al-zafīr and al-shahīq are among the sounds of the grieved. He said: al-zafīr is of the violent and ugly moaning, and al-shahīq is the strong moaning that ascends very high. He said: and some of the philologists of the Baṣrīyyūn and the Kūfīyyūn claimed that al-zafīr corresponds to the beginning of the donkey's sound when braying, and al-shahīq corresponds to the end of its sound when inhaling. And on the authority of al-Rabīʿ it is related concerning His word: لهم فيها زفير وشهيق ("for them therein is moaning and braying"), that he said: al-zafīr is in the throat, and al-shahīq is in the chest (al-Lisān: shahaqa).
