Sura 37, as-Saffat, Mecca 56

The Quranic text & Ali’s version

أَذَلِكَ خَيْرٌ نُّزُلًا أَمْ شَجَرَةُ الزَّقُّومِ ﴿٦٢﴾

37:62. Is that the better entertainment or the Tree of Zaqqum?

C4072. Cf. 17:60, n. 2250.

This bitter tree of Hell is in contrast with the beautiful Garden of heaven with its delicious fruits.

إِنَّا جَعَلْنَاهَا فِتْنَةً لِّلظَّالِمِينَ ﴿٦٣﴾

63. For We have truly made it (as) a trial for the wrongdoers.

C4073. This dreadful bitter Tree of Hell is truly a trial to the wrong-doers.

- It grows at the bottom of Hell;

- even its fruit-stalks, which should have been tender, are like the heads of devils:

- its produce is eaten voraciously;

- on top of it is a boiling mixture to cut up their entrails (see next note); and

- every time they complete this round of orgies they return to the same game.

A truly lurid picture, but more lurid in reality are the stages of Evil.

- It takes its rise in the lowest depths of corrupted human nature;

- its tenderest affections are degraded to envy and hate;

- the appetite for Evil grows with what it feeds on;

- its "cures" serve but to aggravate the disease; and

- the chain of evil is unending; one round is followed by another in interminable succession.

إِنَّهَا شَجَرَةٌ تَخْرُجُ فِي أَصْلِ الْجَحِيمِ ﴿٦٤﴾

64. For it is a tree that springs out of the bottom of Hell-fire:

طَلْعُهَا كَأَنَّهُ رُؤُوسُ الشَّيَاطِينِ ﴿٦٥﴾

65. The shoots of its fruit-stalks are like the heads of devils:

فَإِنَّهُمْ لَآكِلُونَ مِنْهَا فَمَالِؤُونَ مِنْهَا الْبُطُونَ ﴿٦٦﴾

66. Truly they will eat thereof and fill their bellies therewith.

C4074. The parable of fruits and drinks in the contrasted fortunes of the Good and the Evil is further elaborated in 47:15, where the boiling water given to the evil ones cuts up their entrails.

ثُمَّ إِنَّ لَهُمْ عَلَيْهَا لَشَوْبًا مِّنْ حَمِيمٍ ﴿٦٧﴾

67. Then on top of that they will be given a mixture made of boiling water.

ثُمَّ إِنَّ مَرْجِعَهُمْ لَإِلَى الْجَحِيمِ ﴿٦٨﴾