Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 93 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:93

فَنُزُلٌ مِّنْ حَمِيمٍ

“Then [for him is] accommodation of scalding water”

Saheeh International

Essence

The word is a host's word for the fare set out when a guest arrives, and it is served at the door rather than later.

A reflection

Served at the door, not afterwards

Almost everybody reads these two ayat as a description of Hell. They are, and they are describing a moment much earlier than the one most readers assume.

One commentary says it plainly. These three states are the states of people at the time of their dying.

So the welcome in this ayah is not a sentence passed at the end of time. It is what is set out at the door, in the minutes the family in the earlier ayah are watching.

A reflective commentary describes that window carefully. The soul at the throat has parted and not parted, so it is a crossing between death and life. And once it has parted, it is in a crossing between this world and the next.

And a hadith in both of the two Sahihs describes the same moment from the other side. The believer, when death is present to him, is given glad tidings. And the disbeliever, at that point, is given tidings of Allah's punishment. Nothing is then more hateful to him than what is ahead of him.

So the three cases in these ayat are not three verdicts delivered at a trial. They are three things handed to three men at the same threshold.

And that is why the word chosen is a host's word rather than a judge's. It is the fare brought out when somebody arrives, before anything else has happened.

Which tells you the reason this ayah is placed where it is. The surah could have put it at the Hour, where it also belongs. It put it in the room, four ayat after a family who could do nothing, because the room is where the reader will actually be.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.