Ghafir · Makki · ayah 71 of 85

Ghafir 40:71

إِذِ ٱلْأَغْلَـٰلُ فِىٓ أَعْنَـٰقِهِمْ وَٱلسَّلَـٰسِلُ يُسْحَبُونَ

“When the shackles are around their necks and the chains; they will be dragged”

Saheeh International

Essence

Those who denied will know, when collars are on their necks and chains drag them along, that what they rejected was true.

A reflection

Collars forged from the inside

Idhi al-aghlālu fī aʿnāqihim. When the collars are on their necks.

The word aghlāl comes from the root gh-l-l. Its picture in the lexicons is of something pierced in and left there: something that slips in and lodges. The ghull is the iron collar, named because the limbs sit inside it. And the same root gives ghill: rancour that works its way into the chest. This is established.

The lexicons add a striking idiom. A miser is called maghlūl al-yad: one whose hand is chained to his neck. The Quran uses the same image when it says: do not make your hand chained to your neck (17:29), meaning do not be tight-fisted.

So the collar of this ayah has relatives in this life. Rancour lodged in the chest. A hand locked shut against giving. These are inner collars. Many people wear them for years without noticing the weight.

This is a reflection, not a claim that each punishment exactly copies a sin. The commentaries describe the collars and chains plainly as part of the punishment. But the shared root invites a question: what collars am I forging now?

A man holds a grudge against his brother for twenty years over a disputed loan. He does not speak of it often. But it is there, lodged in his chest, at every family gathering and every Eid. When his brother dies suddenly, he finds he cannot cry. The grudge has become a collar he no longer knows how to take off.

The Quran also describes the Prophet ﷺ as one who removes from people their burdens and the collars that were upon them (7:157). The same word, aghlāl. Faith, on that picture, is the unlocking of collars, not the fitting of them.

The question is which collars we allow to stay lodged in us, and which we bring to Him to be removed.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.