إِنَّها عَلَيهِم مُؤصَدَةٌ
Indeed, it will close in upon them.
EXEGESIS
Muʾṣadah (closed in) is a passive participle from the verb awṣada. In its infinitive form it means to fix something, to cover a pot with a lid, to close a door or window, to surround something, make a fence around cattle, or to block something or someone.
EXPOSITION
In this world, evil people were engulfed and enclosed by the deceptions of Satan and did not open the soul to free it from the evil inclinations, ill feelings, grudges, and unlawful love for wealth. As a consequence, the ḥuṭamah will engulf them in the next life without any relief.
Similarly, in upon them will be a closed fire (nārun muʾṣadah) (90:20), the engulfing fire, as it appears from the context, will be for those who were selfish, miserly, and arrogant, and who did not help the needy, the starving, and the orphans.
In They shall have hell for their resting place, and over them shall be sheets (ghawāsh) [of fire], and thus do We requite the wrongdoers (7:41), the word ghawāsh, which is the plural of ghāshiyah, is used to indicate that there are layers of fire above them that are covering them. This may be another expression for the fire closing up on them.
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- Ibn Masʿūd and Ibn Abbas narrate: ‘Verily, the hypocrites will be lodged in closed iron coffins in the hellfire. They are in the lowest level of hell due to the indecency of their acts.’
- In a letter to the people of Egypt, Imam Ali (a) describes hell as follows: ‘Its abyss is extremely deep, its heat is extremely hot, its drink is the pus [discharged from the blisters of the people of hell], its punishment is renewed, and its torturing tools are iron. Its torture never stops; its inhabitant never dies. It is an abode in which there is no mercy, and no supplications [for help] from its people is heard.’
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
The fire that will close in upon them can have three probabilities: 1. It makes them collapse inside it to crush them, as something is crushed between two flat things. 2. The gates of hell close upon them so that they cannot escape. 3. It is closed from all sides and there is no opening at all, in a way that no one can leave.
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
The Dead Sea Scrolls have some content indicating an eternal hellfire: ‘And the Levites shall curse all the men of the lot of Satan, saying: “Be cursed because of all your guilty wickedness! May He deliver you up for torture at the hands of the vengeful Avengers! May He visit you with destruction by the hand of all the Wreckers of Revenge! Be cursed without mercy because of the darkness of your deeds! Be damned in the shadowy place of everlasting fire!”’
Some parts of Hymn 9, have a resemblance with the closing of the ḥuṭamah on the evil ones, as well as the stretched columns and the deep valley of wayl: ‘As the abysses boil above the fountains of the waters, the towering waves and billows shall rage with the voice of their roaring; and as they rage, [Hell and Abaddon] shall open [and all] the flying arrows of the pit shall send out their voice to the abyss. And the gates [of hell] shall open [on all] the works of vanity; and the doors of the Pit shall close on the conceivers of wickedness; and the everlasting bars shall be bolted on all the spirits of naught.’
Interestingly, a very strong resemblance with the ḥuṭamah can be found in Hymn 18, which is the complaint of a wicked person being punished in the hellfire. He describes watching himself being alive while his body is consumed in the fire, and his flesh is destroyed and dissolved, yet he does not die: ‘… whose flames devour me for days on end, diminishing my strength for times on end and destroying my flesh for seasons on end … [Behold, I am] carried away with the sick; [I am acquainted] with scourges. I am forsaken in [my sorrow] … and without any strength. For my sore breaks out in bitter pains and in incurable sickness impossible to stay; [my heart laments] within me as in those who go down to Hell. My spirit is imprisoned with the dead, for [my life] has reached the Pit; my soul languishes [within me], day and night without rest. My wound breaks out like burning fire shut up in [my bones], whose flames devour me for days on end, diminishing my strength for times on end and destroying my flesh for seasons on end. The pains fly out [towards me] and my soul within me languishes even to death. My strength has gone from my body, and my heart runs out like water; my flesh is dissolved like wax, and the strength of my loins is turned to fear.’
[1] https://www.almaany.com/quran/104/8/3/.
[2] Bihar, 8/241.
[3] Bihar, 8/286.
[4] Māwardī, al-Nukat wa al-ʿUyūn Tafsīr al-Māwardī (Beirut: DKI, 1992), 6/335.
[5] Alan T. Farnes, ‘John the Baptist and the Qumran Connection’, in Studia Antiqua 9, no. 1 (2011).
[6] Skye, The Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 313.
[7] Skye, The Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 335.