An-Naba · Makki · ayah 25 of 40

An-Naba 78:25

إِلَّا حَمِيمًا وَغَسَّاقًا

“Except scalding water and [foul] purulence -”

Saheeh International

Essence

Instead of coolness and drink, only scalding water and a dark, foul flow: heat with no warmth in it at all.

A reflection

Heat without warmth

A grandmother runs a bath for her four-year-old grandson and tests it with her elbow, the way her own mother taught her. A little warmer, and it would sting. A little cooler, and he would shiver. The line between comfort and harm is only a few degrees wide.

The root of ḥamīm runs right along that line. The lexicons say ḥamīm is water heated to its limit, and also sweat. A ḥamma was a hot spring where the sick came for healing. The same root gives charcoal and black smoke. And ḥamīm is also the close friend, the near relative whose concerns are your own. To lie awake with care for someone was iḥtamma. These are established senses.

One grammarian quoted in the sources says the root of ḥamīm is hot water, and from it come the bath-house and fever. The sources on this ayah explain it as water boiled until its heat has reached its end. One commentator rejects a view that it is molten brass. It is water, he says, boiling to the extreme.

So a single root holds the healing spring and the scalding drink, the warm friend and the burning heat. A word entry on this root puts the contrast sharply. The rebels taste only ḥamīm: heat, but no warmth.

That is a haunting thought. Warmth is heat that serves life: a bath, a meal, an embrace. Scald is heat that has crossed the line. In this world, the heat around us is mostly warmth, measured to a few kind degrees, like the grandmother's elbow in the bath.

It is worth noticing how much of our comfort depends on that measuring. The sun that does not burn, the water that does not scald, the friend whose closeness does not suffocate. Each is heat held within mercy. The ayah shows what heat is when the mercy is withdrawn.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.