Verse 33
The Reality • makkah
View Aspects
Commentary:
It has repeatedly been explained in the Quran that life after death is not a new life but only an image and manifestation of the present one. In these verses the spiritual torture of the present world has been represented as a physical punishment in the next world. The chain to be put round the neck, for instance, represents the desires of this world which keep a man’s head bent upon the earth, and it is these desires that will assume the form of a chain in the life to come. Similarly, the entanglements of this world will be seen as chains on the feet. The heart-burning of this world will likewise appear as the flames of burning fire. The wicked man in fact has in this very world within himself a hell of his passions and inextinguishable desires; he feels the burning of that hell in the failures he meets within this life. When, therefore, he will see a never-ending despair before him in the new world, his desires will assume the shape of burning fire.
The "securing" of the sinful with the chain of a length of seventy cubits reveals the same secret. The limit of man’s age may generally be fixed at seventy, and a wicked person often lives up to that age in his wickedness. Sometimes, he even enjoys seventy years excluding the periods of childhood and decrepitude. These seventy years, during which he could work with honesty, wisdom and zeal he wastes away in the entanglements of the world and in satisfying his sensual passions. He does not try to free himself from the chain of desires, and, therefore, in the next world the chain of desires which he indulged in for seventy years shall be embodied in a chain of a length of seventy cubits, every cubit representing a year, with which the wicked shall be fettered.
It has repeatedly been explained in the Qur’an that Life after death is not a new life but only an image and representation of the facts of the present life. In these verses the spiritual torture of the present world has been represented as the physical punishment in the next. The chain to be put round the neck, for instance, represents the desires of this world and it is these desires that will assume the form of fetters in the life to come. Similarly, the entanglements of this world will be seen as chains on the feet. The heart- burning of this world will, likewise, appear as the flames of burning fire. The limit of man’s age may generally be fixed at seventy, excluding the periods of childhood and decrepitude. These seventy years, the wicked disbeliever wastes away in the entanglements of the world and in satisfying his sensual passions. He does not try to free himself from the chain of desires, and, therefore, in the next world the chain of desires, which he indulged in for seventy years, shall be