Al-Mutaffifin 83:16 - Linguistic Miracle

Thumma, they shall be those burn in the blaze

Thumma can mean two things. Firstly, it could indicate a sequence in time, in which case it would mean that after being barred from Allah, they will be thrown into Hell. Secondly, it can indicate a sequence in status. Meaning, they will be barred from their Lord, and even greater punishment than that is the fact that they will be thrown into the fire. Scholars debated widely over this meaning because being barred from Allah is the ultimate misfortune, so how can the fire be given a greater status? The answer lies in the context. As explained above, being barred from Allah implies not only the fact that they will not see Allah on judgment day, but also that they will be barred from entering into His presence. When Allah refuses to let them enter His court and to accept them into His presence, this humiliates them. They are not worthy to enter His presence. The context is of humiliating and disgracing them because of their

actions. So first they will be disgraced by not being considered worthy of entering into Allah’s court and being able to see Him, and then they will be further humiliated inside Hell via various forms of punishment. Al-Ālūsī pointed out that for these people, who do not love Allah, being barred from Allah is not as big a punishment as it is for the believers. For the believer who loves Allah, nothing surpasses the punishment of being barred from Allah, but for the disbeliever, who neither loves nor believes in Allah, being punished in the fire is the bigger punishment. This verse is emphasized two fold by the use of the word إن and the letter lām. This style of speech is used when addressing those who deny what you are saying to them. These people, who wrong other people, deny they will ever enter the fire for their deeds. If they did, they would stop.

Lastly, the phrase “who burn in the blaze” is a genitive construction. (iḍāfah) A genitive construction in Arabic, indicates an action having been completed already in the past. For example, if I use a genitive construction with reading a book in Arabic, it means that I have already completed reading the book. So what does it mean in this verse? The language literally means that they have already entered the fire. Two things. Number one, this is a form of warning. In semitic languages, a future event that is yet to occur, can be spoken of in the past tense as if it already happened to denote the sure certainty that it will indeed happen. The Qurʾān mostly speaks of judgment day in the past tense, not in the future, to communicate that judgment is absolutely certain to happen, as certain as an event that has already occurred in the past. So in this verse, this serves as a warning to those who wrong other people. You are absolutely certain to burn in the fire because of your actions. Secondly, consider how we say in normal English, “He sealed his fate then and there”, for an action that is absolutely sure to lead to consequences in the future. Imagine someone runs a business and makes a poor decision, that is sure to lead to bad consequences in the future. Those consequences have not yet been faced, but they are sure to in the future. We say that this person sealed the fate of his business then and there with that poor decision, even though the business is running smoothly at the time these words are spoken. Same is the case here. These people sealed their fate, of entering hell fire, when they wronged other people. They may be safe and sound right now, but it is simply a ticking clock. Your fate is sealed with no way out. The only way to undo this, is to undo the wrong you have done. So this serves not only as a statement of pure fact that they have sealed their fate, but it is also a call to these people to undo the wrong they did to others and to redeem themselves, before Allah Himself redeems those they have wronged. Just by using a genitive

construction, a usage so subtle that it has even gone unnoticed by almost all scholars, Allah conveys these profound meanings.