Ad-Dukhan · Makki · ayah 47 of 59
Ad-Dukhan 44:47
خُذُوهُ فَٱعْتِلُوهُ إِلَىٰ سَوَآءِ ٱلْجَحِيمِ
“[It will be commanded], "Seize him and drag him into the midst of the Hellfire,”
Saheeh International
Essence
The order is given: seize him, and drag him by force into the very middle of the blazing Fire.
A reflection
Dragged by the collar
Khudhūhu fa-ʿtilūhu ilā sawāʾi al-jaḥīm: seize him, and drag him into the middle of the blazing Fire.
The verb ʿatala is precise. One commentary explains it as taking a man by the clothes gathered at his chest and dragging him towards you. The destination is prison, or some disaster. Another, quoting a lexicon, describes it as grabbing a thing by its gathering point and hauling it by force. The concise commentaries add: roughly, harshly.
The same root names a kind of person. The ʿutull is a coarse, overbearing man who devours and wrongs others. One commentary notes this link directly. Another surah describes such a man: ʿutullin baʿda dhālika, harsh and brutish besides all that (68:13).
The man who spent his life treating people roughly is now handled roughly. The one who dragged others is dragged.
At a secondary school, one boy has spent three years dragging smaller boys by their collars. Into corners, behind the bike sheds, out of the lunch queue. Everyone knows. One afternoon, after he hurts a first-year badly, two teachers take him by the arms. In front of the whole assembly hall, they march him out. For the first time, the other boys see him held.
That is a small, earthly mirror of this ayah. The Quran does not hide that its punishments often match the deed.
And so the mirror turns to us. How do we handle people who are weaker than us? The child who annoys us, the waiter who gets the order wrong, the junior who cannot answer back. The root of ʿatala asks a quiet question. Is there any ʿutull in the way I take hold of others?
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