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See {69:6-8}.
lit., a bitter and screaming wind.
The detailed story of the 'Ad and their besetting sin, and the preaching of their Prophet Hud to them will be found in xxvi. 123-140; also vii. 65-72, and n. 1040. For the furious Wind, Cf. liv. 19.
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The story of the Thamud usually goes with that of the 'Ad. Cf. xxvi. 140-59; also vii. 73-79, and n. 1043.
"The thunder bolt:" i.e., deafening noises like those of thunder and lightning; or the rumbling of a terrible earthquake. In vii. 78, an earthquake is suggested: see n. 1047 to that verse. Cf. also above. xli. 13.
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"Marched in ranks": to show their further humiliation: for they will be like prisoners going to Punishment.
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It is reported in Ibn Kathîr’s commentary that, on the Day of Judgment, the wicked will deny the evil deeds in their records—as a desperate attempt to escape the horrible punishment in Hell. They will be asked if they accept Allah, the angels, or even their own families and neighbours as witnesses, but they will refuse. So Allah will make their organs testify against them.
All the members of their bodies and the faculties of their minds, which they misused, will bear witness against them. Similarly, in xxxvi. 65, their hands and their feet bear witness against them. The "skin" not only includes the sense of touch (which is so often misused in sex), but also the sense of taste and the sense of smell, which are specialised forms of the organ of touch. All the sensory organs, and all their intellectual and emotional counterparts advance us by their use and pull us down by their misuse. They become tell-tale witnesses against us if abused.
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A new phase of their existence will now dawn on them. They used to think that if they concealed their evil deeds from the rest of the world, nothing would happen to them! But Allah can give "tongues to trees", and can make every fact in life, known and unknown to the world, contribute to the elucidation of truth and justice. When we succumb to evil, our limbs and faculties themselves betray us.
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The limbs and faculties will say: "You did not seek to hide your evil from us: in fact you used us for your evil, because we were in your power. Did you not know that Allah knew everything and that our knowledge would be evidence against you?"
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"You now see the situation! We were given for your use and service. You misused us, to your own utter and irretrievable destruction!"
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Sc., "unless God wills to reprieve them": see the last paragraph of 6:128 and the corresponding note [114]; also the hadith quoted in note [10] on 40:12 .
Lit., "they will not be of those who are allowed to make amends": an allusion to the request of the doomed, on the Day of Judgment, to be granted a "second chance" on earth, and to God's refusal of this request (cf. {6:27-28} and 32:12 ).
If they have patience: there is sarcasm in the meaning. "Let them not be impatient: they will soon find a home in the Fire of Hell! If they ask for grace and forgiveness then, it will be too late."
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Or: "soul-mates" (cf. 4:38 ). The verb qarana, from which the noun qarin is derived, signifies "he linked" or "intimately associated" or "yoked together [one thing with another]". Cf. 43:36 - "as for anyone who chooses to remain blind to the remembrance of the Most Gracious, to him We assign an [enduring] evil impulse [lit., "a satan"], to become his other self".
Lit., "that which was between their hands and that which was behind them": i.e., their own evil impulses (which had become their "other selves", as it were) made alluring to them the unrestrained enjoyment, without any moral discrimination, of all the worldly attractions which lay open before them, causing them, at the same time, to dismiss as an illusion the idea of ressurrection and of God's judgment - thus giving them a false sense of security with regard to something that was beyond their ken.
For this rendering - and the meaning - of the term jinn, see Appendix III.
i.e., associating others with Allah in worship and denying the Hereafter. See 43:36-37.
Just as the idea of happiness in heaven is expressed, not only by individual satisfaction, but by congenial society, so the idea of Punishment in hell is deepened by the fact that Evil will be made to meet evil: those who made sin fair-seeming in this life will be there to share in the regrets and mutual recriminations which will make life a burden. In fact, in these Ha-Mim verses, the idea of fit companionship for the Good and uncongenial company for the Evil, runs like a thread throughout. See Introduction to S. xl.
They painted in glowing colours the pleasures of sin in the past and the pleasure of sin in the future, thus practising a double deception, which will now be found out.
Jinns: see n. 929 to vi. 100. All spirits of wickedness and all men who submitted to them, in the past, were under one common sentence; and future generations who embrace evil will also join them. Cf. vi. 128.
The echo here of verse 23 above completes the argument from another point of view.
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This is an allusion to efforts aimed at discrediting the Qur'an by describing it as "invented" by Muhammad for his own - personal and political - ends, as a series of "misunderstood quotations" from earlier scriptures, as the result of "hallucinations", and so forth: all of which implies that the opponents of the Qur'anic message instinctively feel its force, realizing at the same time that it endangers their self-complacent, materialistic outlook on life and ought, therefore, to be combatted. This explains the statement, at the end of verse {28}, that they "knowingly reject" God's messages.
A favourite trick of those who wish to dishonour Revelation is, not only not to listen to it themselves, but to talk loudly and insolently when it is being read, so that even the true listeners may not be able to perform their devotions. They think that they are drowning the voice of Allah: in fact they are piling up misery for themselves in the future. For Allah's voice can never be silenced.
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Nothing that they can do, however outrageous, will escape its fit punishment. And to reject Allah's Signs is to shut the very door to His Grace and Mercy.
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For the above rendering of the verb jahada, see surah {29}, note [45].
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See 6:112 - "against every prophet We have set up as enemies the evil forces (shayatin) from among humans as well as from among invisible beings" - and the corresponding note [98].
Cf. 7:38 .
It is one of the qualities of sin and all evil, that it wishes to drag down others in its own camp, and rejoices to see them humiliated and disgraced, just as, in the opposite case, the good rejoice to help and honour others and make them happy wherever they can. Cf. vi. 112-113.
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Especially at the time of their death.
The people who succeed in eternal Life are those who recognise and understand the one and only Eternal Reality, that is Allah, and further shape their probationary Life firmly and steadfastly on the principles of that Truth and Reality. They will have their friends and protectors in the good angels, in contrast to the evil ones, who will have no friendship or protection, but only the reproaches of the Satan.
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