Ad-Dukhan · Makki · ayah 46 of 59

Ad-Dukhan 44:46

كَغَلْىِ ٱلْحَمِيمِ

“Like the boiling of scalding water.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The food of the Fire boils inside like water heated to its limit, the same word Arabic uses for the closest of friends.

A reflection

Heat without warmth

Ka-ghalyi al-ḥamīm: like the boiling of ḥamīm.

The concise commentaries define ḥamīm here as water at the utmost of heat. But the word holds a second meaning that the first hearers knew well. The lexicons say the ḥamīm is also your near one, the close friend or relative whose affairs you worry over. One word for the hottest water and the closest friend. The one who burns with what burns you.

The Quran plays on both meanings. On the Day, it says, no ḥamīm will ask about his ḥamīm (70:10). For the wrongdoers there will be no ḥamīm and no intercessor who is obeyed (40:18). In the Fire, they will say: we have no intercessors, and no devoted ḥamīm (26:100-101).

And instead, they are given ḥamīm to drink.

The warmth of friendship is gone. Only the heat remains.

An old man lived for thirty years next door to his closest friend. Every afternoon at four, the friend knocked, and the old man put the kettle on. The friend died in the spring. All summer, the old man still puts the kettle on at four. It boils. He pours two cups. Then he sits alone and lets the second one go cold.

That is the shape of loss in this life. The heat of the kettle remains when the warmth of the friend has gone.

The ayah shows the final form of that loss. A person who lived without the friendship of Allah, and without friends who led him to Allah, is left with heat and no warmth. The question for now is simple. Who are your ḥamīm, and do they burn for you in the right way?

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.