Al-Haqqah · Makki · ayah 6 of 52

Al-Haqqah 69:6

وَأَمَّا عَادٌ فَأُهْلِكُوا۟ بِرِيحٍ صَرْصَرٍ عَاتِيَةٍ

“And as for ʿAad, they were destroyed by a screaming,[1737] violent wind”

Saheeh International

Essence

Aad were destroyed by an ordinary wind pushed past every ordinary limit, a reminder that Allah needs nothing exotic to undo anyone.

A reflection

A knot of cold pulled tight

Ṣarṣar doubles a root that already means something drawn tight. The simple form, ṣarra, is to knot coins into a purse, or tie a cloth over a she-camel's udder so her calf cannot feed. The same root gives iṣrār: a resolve pulled so tight a person will not loosen it even to save themselves. And the same letters, differently, give biting cold, the kind that harms a crop overnight.

Sarsar reduplicates that root for emphasis, the way doubling a word in any language intensifies it. The wind named here is not simply cold. It is cold knotted onto cold, tightened past any ordinary winter chill into something that closes around a body the way a drawn purse-string closes around coins, leaving no give at all.

So the same root family holds a knotted purse, a muzzled calf, a stubborn sinner who will not let go of his sin, and this wind. Each image shares one shape: something pulled shut so tightly that nothing can get in or out. Aad's wind did not simply blow. It closed around them the way a cord closes around whatever it is tied to, and nothing, once it had tightened, was coming free.

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.