Surah 11. Hud, Ayah 82

Lit., "stones of sijjil", which latter noun is regarded by some philologists as the Arabicized form of the Persian sang-i-gil ("clay-stone" or "petrified clay"): cf. Qamus and Taj al-'Arus. If this supposition is correct, the "stones of petrified clay" would be more or less synonymous with "brimstones", which in its turn would point to a volcanic eruption, probably in conjunction with a severe earthquake (alluded to in the preceding phrase, "We turned those [sinful towns] upside down"). But there is also a strong probability, pointed out by Zamakhshari and Razi, that the term sijjil is of purely Arabic origin - namely, a synonym of sijjil, which primarily signifies "a writing", and secondarily, "something that has been decreed": in which case the expression hijarah min sijjil can be understood in a metaphorical sense, namely, as "stones of all the chastisement laid down in God's decree" (Zamakhshari and Razi, both in conjunction with the above verse and in their commentaries on 105:4 ). It is, I believe, this metaphorical meaning of "stone-hard blows of chastisement pre-ordained", i.e., of God-willed doom, that the concluding sentence of the next verse alludes to.

Cf. vii. 84 and n. 1052.

Sijjil, a Persian word Arabicised, from Sang-o-gil, or Sang-i-gil, stone and clay, or hard as baked clay, according to the Qamus. Sodom and Gomorrah were in a tract of hard, caky, sulphurous soil, to which this description well applies. Cf. Ii. 33, where the words are "stones of clay" (hijarat min tin) in connection with the same incident. On the other hand, in cv. 4, the word sijjil is used for pellets of hard-baked clay in connection with Abraha and the Companions of the Elephant.