"Snatches away their sight"—meaning: it takes it away, seizes it, and snatches it due to the intensity of its brightness and the light of its rays.
469- Just as I was narrated from al-Minjāb ibn al-Ḥārith, who said: Bishr ibn ʿUmāra narrated to us, from Abū Rawq, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk, from Ibn ʿAbbās, regarding His statement: "The lightning almost snatches away their sight", he said: It flashes away their sight, though it has not done so yet (1).
Abū Jaʿfar said: Al-khaṭf (snatching) means seizing and snatching away. From it is the report narrated from the Prophet, peace and blessings of God be upon him, that he forbade al-khuṭfa, meaning plundering (2). From it, the hook used to pull out the bucket from the well is called a khuṭṭāf (hook), because of its snatching and seizing whatever attaches to it. From it is the statement of al-Nābigha of Banū Dhubyān:
Curved hooks upon sturdy ropes... pulled toward you by reaching hands (3)
Notes
- (1) Report 469: I did not find it. And iltamaʿa al-baṣar (sight was snatched away) or anything else: it was snatched, seized, and taken away. From it is the hadith: "When one of you is in prayer, he should not raise his sight to the sky, lest his sight be snatched away", meaning seized.
- (2) What Ibn al-Athīr mentioned in al-Nihāya is that al-khiṭfa (the snatched chunk) is what a wolf snatches from the limbs of a live sheep, because whatever is severed from a living creature is dead. That is because the prohibition of khiṭfa occurred when the Messenger of Allah, Peace and blessings of God be upon him, arrived in Medina and saw people cutting off the humps of camels and the fat tails of sheep and eating them. He said: al-khiṭfa is a single instance of snatching, so the snatched limb was named by it. As for al-nuhba and al-nuhbā, it is a name for what is looted; its clarification was given in a hadith in Sunan Abī Dāwūd (3/88): "The people obtained plunder and looted it, so ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Samura stood up as a speaker and said: 'I heard the Messenger of Allah, Peace and blessings of God be upon him, prohibit looting (al-nuhbā)'." In the same Chapter of Sunan Abī Dāwūd, on the authority of a man from the Anṣār, he said: "We went out with the Messenger of Allah, Peace and blessings of God be upon him, on a journey, and the people suffered severe poverty and hardship, so they obtained sheep and looted them. Our pots were boiling when the Messenger of Allah, Peace and blessings of God be upon him, came walking relying on his bow, so he overturned our pots with his bow, then began to mix the meat with dust and said: 'Indeed, plunder is no more lawful than carrion'."
- (3) His Dīwān: 41, and before it is the famous verse:
For indeed you are like the night that is bound to overtake me... even if I think the distance away from you is vast.
Khaṭāṭīf: plural of khuṭṭāf (hook). And ḥujn: plural of aḥjan, which is curved with a hook at its end. He said "extended with them" (tumaddu bihā) and did not say "extends them" (tamudduhā), because he did not mean the extending of ropes possessing hooks; rather, he meant the hand that extends with and holding the hooks, because the hand is what follows the object wherever it goes (see what will come regarding the insertion of bāʾ into such a verb, p. 360, lines 6–9). His statement "towards you" (ilayka) is connected to his statement "pulling" (nawāziʿ). And is the plural of and , from their saying "he pulled () the bucket from the well": drew it and brought it out. That is, these hands pull whatever they wish towards you, and return it to you. The verse is connected to the one before it, and an explanation of his statement "For indeed you are like the night that is bound to overtake me"; he intended to magnify the dread of night and what is seen in it, followed wherever it goes by hooked claws from which there is no escape.
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