Surah 76. Al-Insan, Ayah 4

Sc., "of despair". For the metaphor of "shackles and chains" - i.e., the consequence of the sinners' blind surrender to their own passions and to false values, and the resulting enslavement of their spirit - see surah {34}, note [44]; also Razi's elaborate comments (quoted in note [7] on {73:12-13}) on this allegory of suffering in the hereafter.

In this context, the "denial of the truth" (kufr) apparently relates to man's deliberate suppression of his inborn cognition of God's existence (cf. 7:172 and the corresponding note [139]) as well as to his disregard of his own instinctive perceptions of good and evil.

Cf. xiii. 5; xxxiv. 33 and xl. 71.