وَآخَرينَ مُقَرَّنينَ فِي الأَصفادِ
And others [too] bound together in chains.
EXEGESIS
Muqarranīn (bound together) comes from qarn, meaning two things that are beside one another. Here it can mean that their hands or feet were tied together or to their necks. It could also mean that they were tied to one another in groups.
Aṣfād (chains) is the plural of ṣafād, meaning a chain which is used to bind a person, usually by the hands.
EXPOSITION
Not all jinn were put to work by Prophet Solomon (a); even though they are all described as shayāṭīn (devils), it seems like some of them were too devious or lacked any useful skills to be put to work and were simply bound. Prophet Solomon (a) would only bind the faithless jinns and release them when they believed. Binding the jinn in this way kept them from committing evil and harming the people.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
There is debate among the exegetes and scholars about the nature of these jinn, and how they could construct buildings and how they could be bound, and whether or not other people could see them and what happened to them after the death of Prophet Solomon (a). Al-Bayḍāwī posits that they might have had physical forms in order to be bound; therefore, they should have been visible as well, although he says that binding them is most likely figurative, meaning to keep them from doing evil. Rāzī claims that the jinns living at Prophet Solomon’s (a) time were different and that they had physical forms, and after that God created a new type of jinn that was invisible and weak. Many other such arguments have been made. As is obvious, the discussion surrounding these questions is all highly speculative.
[1] Raghib, p. 667.
[2] Nemuneh, 19/287.
[3] Tibyan, 8/565.
[4] Tabrisi, 8/744; Qurtubi, 15/206; Shawkani, 4/498.
[5] Baydawi, 5/30; Alusi, 12/195.
[6] Baydawi, 5/30.
[7] Razi, 26/395-396.
[8] See for example Alusi, 12/195.