Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 81 of 96
Al-Waqi'ah 56:81
أَفَبِهَـٰذَا ٱلْحَدِيثِ أَنتُم مُّدْهِنُونَ
“Then is it to this statement that you are indifferent”
Saheeh International
Essence
The charge is not denial but softness: the word comes from oil worked into a hide until it will take any shape.
A reflection
Oil worked into a hide
A currier takes a tanned hide and works oil into it until it will take any shape asked of it. That is the whole trade: a thing that was stiff is made to lie down.
The word at the end of this ayah comes straight out of that workshop, and almost every translation flattens it.
The lexicons give the root one sense: softness, ease and smallness. From it come oil, and the anointing of a head with it. From it comes light rain that only wets the surface. And from it comes the word for smoothing a man over, going soft on the truth in order to please him.
One commentary says the original sense plainly. The root of it is making a hide and the like oiled with something of oil. And since that softens a thing, in a way you can feel, it came to be used for softness of another kind.
So the charge in this ayah is not that they denied the recitation. The charge is that they went soft about it.
The commentaries fan out from there, and every gloss is worth having. One says: making light of it, like a man who goes soft in a matter. That is, his side yields and he does not stiffen in it, out of contempt. One says: deniers. One says: going along with them in it, and leaning towards them. One says: the hypocrite or the disbeliever who softens his side to hide his disbelief. One says: a man who does not grasp what Allah's right over him is, and pushes it off with excuses. And one says: those who leave off being decisive in accepting it.
That is a far more uncomfortable list than denial, because most of us are nowhere on it and all of us are somewhere on it.
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