-->
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
According to some of the greatest philologists (e.g., Abu 'Ubaydah, as quoted in the Lisan al-'Arab), the term sijjin is derived from - or even synonymous with - the noun sijn, which signifies "a prison". Proceeding from this derivation, some authorities attribute to sijjin the tropical meaning of da'im, i.e., "continuing" or "basting" (ibid.). Thus, in its metaphorical application to a sinner's "record", it is evidently meant to stress the latter's inescapable quality, as if its contents were lastingly "imprisoned", i.e., set down indelibly, with no possibility of escaping from what they imply: hence my rendering of the phrase fi sijjin as "[set down] in a mode inescapable". This interpretation is, to my mind, fully confirmed by verse {9} below.
Sijjîn is the name of a place (such as a confinement) in the depths of Hell.
This is a word from the same root as Sijn, a Prison. It rhymes with and is contrasted with Illiyin in verse 18 below. It is therefore understood by many Commentators to be a place, a Prison or a Dungeon in which the Wicked are confined pending their appearance before the Judgment-Seat. The mention of the Iscribed Register in verse 9 below may imply that Sijjin is the name of the Register of Black Deeds, though verse 9 may be elliptical and may only describe the place by the significance of its contents.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
This is based on the commentary of Ibn Kathîr.
If we take Sijjin to be the Register itself, and not the place where it is kept, the Register itself is a sort of Prison for those who do wrong. It is inscribed fully: i.e., no one is omitted who ought to be there, and for every entry there is a complete record, so that there is no escape for the sinner.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
The fact of Personal Responsibility for each soul is so undoubted that people who deny it are to be pitied, and will indeed be in a most pitiable condition on the Day of Reckoning, and none but the most abandoned sinner can deny it, and he only denies it by playing with Falsehoods.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Implying that a denial of ultimate responsibility before God - and, hence, of His judgment - is invariably conducive to sinning and to transgression against all moral imperatives. (Although this and the next verse are formulated in the singular, I am rendering them in the plural inasmuch as this plurality is idiomatically indicated by the word kull before the descriptive participles mu'tad and athim, as well as by the use of a straight plural in verses {14} ff.)
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Cf. vi. 25; lxviii. 15; etc. They scorn Truth and pretend that it is Falsehood.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Lit., "that which they were earning has covered their hearts with rust": implying that their persistence in wrongdoing has gradually deprived them of all consciousness of moral responsibility and, hence, of the ability to visualize the fact of God's ultimate judgment.
The heart of man, as created by Allah, is pure and unsullied. Every time that a man does an ill deed, it marks a stain or rust on his heart. But on repentance and forgiveness, such stain is washed off. If there is no repentance and forgiveness, the stains deepen and spread more and more, until the heart is scaled (ii. 7), and eventually the man dies a spiritual death. It is such stains that stand in the way of his perceiving Truths which are obvious to others. That is why he mocks at Truth and hugs Falsehood to his bosom.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
The stain of evil deeds on their hearts sullies the mirror of their hearts, so that it does not receive the light. At Judgment the true Light, the Glory of the Lord, the joy of the Righteous, will be hidden by veils from the eyes of the Sinful. Instead; the Fire of Punishment will be to them the only reality which they will perceive.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
I.e., in contrast to the record of the wicked (see verse {7} above). As regards the term 'illiyyun, it is said to be the plural of 'illi or 'illiyyah ("loftiness") or, alternatively, a plural which has no singular (Qamus, Taj al-'Arus); in either case it is derived from the verb 'ala, which signifies "[something] was [or "became"] high" or "lofty" or - tropically - "exalted": thus in the well-known idiomatic phrase, huwa min 'illiyyat qawmihi, "he is among the [most] exalted of his people". In view of this derivation, the plural 'illiyyun has evidently the intensive connotation of "loftiness upon loftiness" (Taj al-'Arus) or "a mode most lofty".
’Illiyûn is an elevated place in Paradise.
'Illiyin: the oblique form of the nominative Illiyun, which occurs in the next verse. It is in contrast to the Sijjin which occurs in verse 7 above, where see n. 6213. Literally, it means the 'High Places'. Applying the reasoning parallel to that which we applied to Sijjin, we may interpret it as the Place where is kept the Register of the Righteous.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
This repeats verse 9 above, where see n. 6014. But the Register is of the opposite kind, that of the Righteous. It contains every detail of the Righteous.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.