تَبَّتْ يَدَا أَبِي لَهَبٍ وَتَبَّ
DOOMED are the hands of him of the glowing countenance, and doomed is he! (1)
مَا أَغْنَىٰ عَنْهُ مَالُهُ وَمَا كَسَبَ
What will his wealth avail him, and all that he has gained? (2)
سَيَصْلَىٰ نَارًا ذَاتَ لَهَبٍ
[In the life to come] he shall have to endure a fire fiercely glowing, (3)
وَامْرَأَتُهُ حَمَّالَةَ الْحَطَبِ
together with his wife, that carrier of evil tales, (4)
فِي جِيدِهَا حَبْلٌ مِنْ مَسَدٍ
[who bears] around her neck a rope of twisted strands! (5)
- together with his wife, that carrier of evil tales,3
- 3 Lit., "carrier of firewood", a well-known idiomatic expression denoting one who surreptitiously carries evil tales and slander from one person to another "so as to kindle the flames of hatred between them" (Zamakhshari; see also Ikrimah, Mujahid and Qatadah, as quoted by Tabari). The woman's name was Arwa umm Jamil bint Harb ibn Umayyah; she was a sister of Abu Sufyan and, hence, a paternal aunt of Muawiyah, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty. Her hatred of Muhammad and his followers was so intense that she would often, under the cover of darkness, scatter thorns before the Prophet's house with a view to causing him hurt; and she employed her great eloquence in persistently slandering him and his message.
- His wife shall carry the (crackling) wood - As fuel!- 6295
- 6295 Abu Lahab's wife was a woman of equally passionate spite and cruelty against the sacred person of the Prophet. She used to tie bundles of thorns with ropes of twisted palm-leaf fibre and carry them and strew them about on dark nights in the paths which the Prophet was expected to take, in order to cause him bodily injury. "To carry firewood" may also be symbolical for carrying tales between people to embroil them. This was also one of her vices. But she was laying up for herself another kind of Fire and another kind of Rope, the Fire of Punishment, and the Rope of Slavery to Evil. Thus does Evil prepare its own fate. This is the general lesson of sustained craft and cruel wrongdoing recoiling on the wrongdoer's head. See also Introduction to this Surah.
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His wife shall carry the (crackling) wood - As fuel!-
— Abdullah Yusuf Ali -
And his wife, the wood-carrier,
— Marmaduke Pickthall -
And his wife, the bearer of fuel,
— M. Habib Shakir -
And his wife too, who carries wood (thorns of Sadan which she used to put on the way of the Prophet (Peace be upon him), or use to slander him).
— Taqiuddin Hilali and M. Mohsin Khan -
And his wife also: the firewood carrier;
— Abdul-Majid Daryabadi -
and his wife, laden with firewood
— Hasan Qaribullah and Ahmed Darwish -
and also his wife, the carrier of the firewood;
— Ayub Khan -
And his wife, too, bearer of slander,
— Sher Ali -
together with his wife, that carrier of evil tales,
— Muhammad Asad -
and his wife, the carrier of the firewood,
— Arthur Arberry -
along with his wife,{{3}} that carrier of slanderous tales;{{4}}
— Abu'l Ala Maududi