وَتَرَى ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ يَوْمَئِذٍ مُّقَرَّنِينَ فِى ٱلْأَصْفَادِ · سَرَابِيلُهُم مِّن قَطِرَانٍ وَتَغْشَىٰ وُجُوهَهُمُ ٱلنَّارُ · لِيَجْزِىَ ٱللَّهُ كُلَّ نَفْسٍ مَّا كَسَبَتْ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَرِيعُ ٱلْحِسَابِ
Wa tara'l-mujrimīna yawmaʾidhin muqarranīna fi'l-aṣfād · Sarābīluhum min qaṭirānin wa taghshā wujūhahumu'n-nār · Li-yajziya'llāhu kulla nafsin mā kasabat · Inna'llāha sarīʿu'l-ḥisāb
"On that day you will see the guilty bound together in fetters. · Their garments are of tar, and the fire covers their faces. · This is so that God may requite every soul for what it has earned. God is swift in reckoning."
The root ق-ر-ن: to bind two things side by side. Qarn — a horn; qarīn — a companion, one who is alongside; iqrān — to bind together. The word was treated at al-Zukhruf 43/53 (al-malāʾikatu muqtarinīn) and at 43/36 (fa-huwa lahu qarīn). I rely on that treatment.
The two words must be recorded together: muqarranīna fi'l-aṣfād — bound both to one another and in shackles. That is, what is described is not merely a restraint but a being together.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that the verb iqrān comes without an object: the word does not say who is bound to whom. And the sūra had already recounted a being-together in the twenty-first verse: the weak and those who were arrogant, the one having followed the other. A link is set up between the two scenes; but I give this not as the wording of the verse but as my own reading.
Sarābīl, the plural of sirbāl: a shirt, a garment worn over. The word occurs at al-Naḥl 16/81 as well; that sūra has not yet been treated in the series.
قَطِرَان — tar: according to what the lexicographers record, a thick, sticky and readily flammable substance obtained from trees or from resin. It used to be smeared on the skin of camels for mange.
A difference in the variant readings is transmitted: the word has been read as qaṭirān (one word) and as qiṭrin ānin (two words: "molten copper" and "extremely hot"). On the second reading the sense changes. I give no reciter's name; I record both readings.
The choice of the word is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: three properties of tar are mentioned together — its clinging, its dark colour and its catching fire. A garment is a thing that protects; here the garment itself is what burns.
The root غ-ش-ي: to cover a thing over and envelop it. The root was analysed in al-Ghāshiya by way of the sūra's name. I do not repeat it here.
I record this as an observation about the word order: this sentence, coming after two verses of description, brings the scene under a measure. The description is not left as a frightening in itself; it is named as the outcome of a reckoning.
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَرِيعُ ٱلْحِسَابِ — and it joins with the prayer in the forty-first verse: yawma yaqūmu'l-ḥisāb. The same word, once in Abraham's prayer and once in the sūra's verdict.