وَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِىَ كِتَٰبَهُۥ وَرَآءَ ظَهْرِهِۦ · فَسَوْفَ يَدْعُوا۟ ثُبُورًا · وَيَصْلَىٰ سَعِيرًا
Wa ammā man ūtiya kitābahū warāʾa ẓahrih · Fa-sawfa yadʿū thubūrā · Wa yaṣlā saʿīrā "But as for him who is given his book from behind his back, he will cry out for destruction and will enter a blazing fire."
وَرَاء — behind, back. ظَهْر — the back. Root ظ-ه-ر: to appear, to come out into view; and from the same root ẓahr (the back — the visible, outward-facing side of the body), ẓāhir (what appears), iẓhār (bringing into the open), and ẓuhr in the sense of noon.
Why so strange? Because the movement described is physically awkward. For a thing to be given to a man from behind his back requires the arm to be bent round backwards.
"But as for him who is given his book in his left hand, he says: 'Would that I had not been given my book!'" (al-Ḥāqqa 69/25)
There, that is, the left hand; here, the back. The ways in which the classical exegetes join these two verses:
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| The left hand is turned round to the back | The person's right hand is bound to his neck or locked to his chest; his left hand is turned round behind him and the book is given to him. The two verses tell the same scene from two angles |
| Two different groups | To some it is given from the left, to some from behind |
| "Behind" is a figure | The person does not want to take his book, he turns his face away; it is held out to him from behind. That is, "being given from behind" is a description of a refusal |
The first view is the most widespread in the classical sources. The third is a reading that can be strained in point of language, but it is not contrary to the logic of the sūra either.
I state no preference here, because neither is contrary to the text and the ruling to be given does not rest on a piece of information about which view is right.
Whichever the preference, the picture the expression sets up is fixed, and it is this: the person cannot look at his own record.
A book given from the right can be seen, read, shown. In al-Ḥāqqa this is said plainly: "Here, read my book!" (69/19). A book given from behind, however, is closed to its own owner.
And this connects with what the sūra has been working at from the beginning. In the fourth verse the earth cast out what was in it and emptied itself — that is, everything came into the open. But for this person what has come into the open is in a place he himself cannot see. Everyone can see it; he cannot.
There is one more link, and it stands between two sūras. In Sūrat al-Burūj occurs: وَٱللَّهُ مِن وَرَآئِهِم مُّحِيطٌۢ — "and God encompasses them from behind" (al-Burūj 85/20). The same word — warāʾ. In both sūras the side man cannot see is the side from which the ruling comes.
Root: ث-ب-ر. To be destroyed, to perish, to be ruined. The root has a second branch as well: to be hindered, to be held back (thabara ʿan).
يَدْعُو ثُبُورًا — word for word: "he calls destruction". That is, the person cries out "yā thubūrāh!" — "oh, my ruin!" It is the Arabic cry of calamity; like the English "alas!" or "I am finished!"
"And when they are cast, bound together, into a narrow place of it, they will call out there for destruction. — Do not call this day for one destruction; call for many destructions!" (al-Furqān 25/13-14)
The relation between the two verses is striking. The expression in al-Furqān, "bound together", is a picture that supports al-Inshiqāq's description of "being given from behind". And al-Furqān's addition, "not one but many", shows how open-ended is the word thubūran, left indefinite (with tanwīn) in al-Inshiqāq.
The root occurs in one further place in the Qurʾān, of a particular person: "O Pharaoh! I think that you are doomed to destruction (mathbūr)" (al-Isrāʾ 17/102). — And note: in that verse too there is the verb ẓann, the verb of the fourteenth verse of this sūra.
صَلَىٰ — Root: ص-ل-ي. To enter the fire, to be roasted in the fire, to be exposed to the fire. In Arabic the word is used especially for leaning against a fire, standing before a fire; iṣlāʾ is to put a thing into the fire. It has nothing to do with the Turkish salamura ("brine"); the root should not be confused with it.
Widespread in the Qurʾān: the uses answering to "I shall make him taste Saqar", and "he shall enter a fire of flame" (al-Masad 111/3) — treated in this commentary in the section on al-Masad.
سَعِير — Root: س-ع-ر. To kindle, to set ablaze, to fan. Saʿara'n-nāra — he made the fire blaze. Saʿīr is fire whose flame has been raised.
Among the names the Qurʾān uses for hell, saʿīr is the one that brings the flame itself forward. It is added in this respect to the list of names of hell in the section on al-Qāriʿa: hāwiya names the manner of arriving, ḥuṭama the crushing and grinding, and saʿīr the having been set alight.
The word again comes indefinite (with tanwīn): saʿīran, "a blazing fire". Like nārun ḥāmiya in al-Qāriʿa, the indefiniteness conveys magnification.