Yāsīn 36:8-9

Innā jaʿalnā fī aʿnāqihim aghlālan fa-hiya ila'l-adhqāni fa-hum muqmaḥūn · Wa jaʿalnā min bayni aydīhim saddan wa min khalfihim saddan fa-aghshaynāhum fa-hum lā yubṣirūn

"We have put collars on their necks, and those collars reach the chins, so their heads are forced up. We have set a barrier before them and a barrier behind them, and We have covered them over; so they do not see."

The root was analysed in al-Ḥāqqa (fa-ghullūh — "bind him"): ghull is the iron ring put on the neck or the hand, a shackle; its plural is aghlāl. And in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/71 the word was treated in this plural form (idhi'l-aghlālu fī aʿnāqihim wa's-salāsil). I do not repeat it here; I rely on that treatment.

What belongs here is a difference in the tense of the verses, and it can be verified:

In Yāsīn, then, the bond is not an instrument of punishment but the description of a present state. The word is the same, the scene different.

Dhaqan — chin. Its plural is adhqān. In the Qurʾān the word occurs at al-Isrāʾ 17/107 in the form yakhirrūna li'l-adhqāni sujjadan (they fall down upon their chins), and at 109 as yakhirrūna li'l-adhqāni yabkūn.

The description of the verse depends on where the word sits: the collar is on the neck, but it rises as far as the chin. A mass filling the space between neck and chin makes it impossible to bend the head forward.

The concrete use of the word has to do with the camel, and the lexicographers record this plainly:

• قَمَحَ البَعِيرُ — the camel would not drink the water and raised its head, drawing its mouth away from the water.
• أَقْمَحَ (Form IV) — to bring someone into this state; to hold the head up by force.
• مُقْمَح — the passive participle: one whose head has been forced up, who cannot bend forward.

A second branch of the root: qamḥ — wheat. The lexicographers record the two branches separately and do not agree on the relation between them. I issue no etymological ruling.

The whole of the description is this: a ring on the neck, the ring resting against the chin, the head fixed upward. Such a person cannot see what is in front of him, cannot look ahead, cannot see the ground he treads on. He looks upward — but looking upward here is not an ascent, it is a paralysis.

A point of word order: fa-hiya ila'l-adhqān — the pronoun hiya is feminine singular and refers back to aghlāl. In Arabic, non-rational plurals count as feminine singular. And two fāʾs come one after the other: *jaʿalnā … fa-hiya … fa-hum muqmaḥūn. Three stages, that is, are chained one to the next: the ring → its resting on the chin → the raising of the head.

One absence must be recorded: in Arabic aghlāl is generally used for the ring that binds the hand to the neck, and the verse does not mention the hand. In the classical commentaries it is widely said that the hands are meant as well; the wording of the verse does not say this. I transmit it; I issue no ruling.

The concrete sense of the root: to close an opening, a gap. Sadda'l-khurmata — he stopped up the hole. And the second branch of the root is worth recording: سَدَاد / سَدِيد — rightness, aptness. The lexicographers make the connection thus: a right word is a word that closes the place left open; an apt act is one that fills the gap.

Beneath the root, then, lies "closing what is open" — and the word can convey both praise and obstruction. I transmit this relation as the lexicographers frame it.

A variant reading — it affects the meaning:

Both readings are transmitted. Most of the lexicographers do not adopt this distinction and treat the two as synonyms. I do not impose a preference; I record it, because for those who do adopt the distinction the character of the barrier in the verse changes.

A point of word order, and it matters: the word saddan is spoken twice, separately — min bayni aydīhim saddan wa min khalfihim saddan. It could have been said with a single sadd, "before them and behind them". The repetition announces that the two barriers are set up separately.

To cover, to envelop, to overlay. Ghishāwa — the film over the eye (al-Baqara 2/7, wa ʿalā abṣārihim ghishāwa). Ghāshiya — that which covers over (al-Ghāshiya 88/1).

A third layer, then, is added. The description in full is three obstacles, and the three lie on three separate axes:

And the block ends with fa-hum lā yubṣirūn: "they do not see."

In Fuṣṣilat at 41/5 it was treated how the addressee counts off three obstacles in his own words: "Our hearts are within coverings, in our ears is a heaviness, and between you and us is a veil." The finding there was this: one of the obstacles is inside (the heart), one at the entrance (the ear), one in between (the veil); and it is the other side that says this — announcing its closedness not as a fault but as a statement of position.

These two places in the two sūras are two accounts of the same condition. A comparison table:

Two differences can be verified, and both must be recorded:

First: the speaker changes. In Fuṣṣilat it is the person himself who counts off the obstacles; in Yāsīn it is the narrator. The same closedness is stated once as a defence and once as a diagnosis.

Second: the sense changes. The axis of Fuṣṣilat is hearing — in that sūra the text arrives but does not get through, and in the twenty-sixth verse the words "do not listen, make noise" will be spoken. The axis of Yāsīn is sight — and the evidential section of the sūra (33-44) will call three times upon looking, saying "a sign for them".

I record this as my own reading: each sūra has chosen the sense that closes according to its own method of proof. Because Fuṣṣilat comes with a word, hearing closes; because Yāsīn comes with a sign, sight does.

The construction mā bayna aydīhim wa mā khalfahum occurs in several places in the sūra and in the index, and its work differs everywhere:

All three are verifiable textual data. My own reading: the same two directions become the object of three different operations — they are closed off, guarding against them is asked, they are decked out. And the two occurrences within Yāsīn itself run in opposite directions: in the ninth verse those two directions are closed, in the forty-fifth verse guarding against those two directions is asked of them. What is said to be closed is later named as a field of responsibility.