Tafsir at-Tabari: Jami' al-Bayan - Dar al-Tarbiyah wa al-Turath Edition

The statement concerning the interpretation of His statement, Exalted be His praise: {and for them is a painful punishment}

Abū Jaʿfar said: And the painful (al-alīm): it is the agonizing (al-mūjiʿ). Its meaning is: and for them is an agonizing (muʾlim) punishment. By morphing "muʾlim" into "alīm" (1), just as it is said: an agonizing (wajīʿ) strike in the sense of agonizing (mūjiʿ), and God is the Originator (badīʿ) of the heavens and the earth, in the sense of Originator (mubdiʿ). And from this is the statement of ʿAmr b. Maʿdīkarib al-Zubaydī:

Is it from Rayḥāna that the hearing (al-samīʿ) caller ... keeps me awake while my companions are asleep (2)

meaning the one making [others] hear (al-musmiʿ). And from this is the statement of Dhū al-Rumma:

And she raises the chests of swift she-camels ... whose faces are turned away by a painful (alīm) heat (3)

And it is narrated "are struck (yaṣukku)". The word "alīm" is merely an adjective for the punishment, as if He said: and for them is an agonizing (muʾlim) punishment. It is derived from pain (al-alam), and pain is ache (al-wajaʿ). Just as-:

334- Al-Muthannā narrated to me, he said: Isḥāq narrated to us, he said: ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Jaʿfar narrated to us, from his father, from al-Rabīʿ, he said: The painful (al-alīm) is the agonizing (al-mūjiʿ).

335- Yaʿqūb narrated to us, he said: Hushaym narrated to us, he said: Juwaybir informed us, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk, he said: The painful (al-alīm) is the agonizing (al-mūjiʿ) (4).

(1) In the printed edition: "So painful turn...".
(2) Al-Aṣmaʿiyyāt: 43, and it comes in the Tafsir of the verse of Sūrat Yūnus: 1 (11:58 Būlāq). Rayḥāna: she is the daughter of Maʿdīkarib, sister of ʿAmr ibn Maʿdīkarib, and she is the mother of Durayd ibn al-Ṣimma; his father, al-Ṣimma, took her captive and married her (al-Aghānī 10:4).
(3) His Dīwān: 592. His statement "and we raise from the chests...": meaning we urge them on in walking, and when camels speed up, they raise their chests. "Shamardalāt" is the plural of "shamardala": which is a fine, beautiful-built, young, and fast she-camel. His statement "turns away their faces": meaning it faces their faces and an agonizing glare strikes them, so their faces turn away as if turning from its sting. The narration in his Dīwān is "strikes" (yaṣukku), and "ṣakkan ṣakkan": a severe blow. "Al-Wahaj": heat of the sun, or heat of fire from a distance.
(4) Tradition 335 - Yaʿqūb: he is Ibn Ibrāhīm al-Dawraqī, the Hadith master (ḥāfiẓ). Hushaym—with a ḍamma on the hāʾ: he is Ibn Bashīr, with a fatḥa on the bāʾ and a kasra on the dotted shīn, ibn al-Qāsim, Abū Muʿāwiya al-Wāsiṭī, a great imam and Hadith master (ḥāfiẓ); the Imams narrated from him: Aḥmad, Ibn al-Madīnī, and others; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī said: "Hushaym was a better memorizer of Hadith than Sufyān al-Thawrī." The meaning of this tradition is included in the one following it: 336.

Translation · EN

Notes