al-Muṭaffifīn

كَلَّا إِنَّ كِتَابَ الْفُجَّارِ لَفِي سِجِّينٍ

وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا سِجِّينٌ

كِتَابٌ مَرْقُومٌ

وَيْلٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ لِلْمُكَذِّبِينَ

7. “Nay.' Most surely the Record of the Wicked is (preserved) in Sijjin."
8. “And what informs you of what 'Sijjin' is?”
9. “(It is) a Register (fully) inscribed."
10. “Woe, That Day, to the deniers,”

What Informs You What 'Sijjin' Is?

To follow the theme of the former verses about shortchangers, and the relation between sin and the lack of strong belief in the Day of Judgment, a part of the destiny of the Wicked on That Day is mentioned in the next verses. At first, it says that they, in vain, think that there is no Record of account given in the Hereafter, but,

There are mainly two commentaries for these verses:

1. The meaning of /kitab/, here, is the record of man in which all the deeds, irrespective of great or small, are exactly inscribed.

The term /sijjin/ means a 'register' wherein the deeds of all mankind are recorded. In other words, it is like a ledger where the account of the creditors and the debtors are registered on separate pages, one by one. The thing that is understood, from this verse and the next verses, is that all the deeds of the Wicked are registered in a book by the name of ‘Sijjin’ and all the deeds of the Righteous are registered in another book by the name of ‘Illiyin’.

The term /sijjin/ is based on /sijn/ which has different meanings, such as: 'prison, hard, anything hard, a terrible place in the bottom of Hell'; the place where the records of the Wicked are held, and it is a proper name for the fire of Hell. Tarihi says in Majma'-al-Bahrain for the root word of /sijn/:

"It is mentioned in the commentary that it is 'a complete work ' comprising the deeds of the Wicked, of Jinn and of mankind.”

(Tarih' has not made it clear as to whose commentary this is). The symmetries that attest to the above idea are as follows:

1. The term

in cases like this in the Holy Qur’an, means 'Record'.

2. The last verse, which has come as a description for the term 'sijjin', says:

Some commentators have not taken the verse as a description for 'sijjin', but, this idea certainly does not apply to the apparent meaning of the words.

3. Some have said that the term /sijjin/ and /sijjil/ have the same meaning. And we know that /sijjil/ means: 'a grand book'.

4. It is understood, from the verses of Qur'an, that the deeds of all mankind are inscribed, in several books, so that no one will have any excuse for their deeds.

The first 'book' is the personal record of the individuals, which will be given to the hand of its owner: for the Righteous to their right hand, and for the evildoers to their left hand; and there are many verses, in the Qur'an, that verify this idea. The second is the one that can be called 'The Record of the Sects', as mentioned in Surah Jathiya, No.45, verse 28 which says:

The third one is the Record of all humankind: The Wicked and the Righteous. The 'book' that, in these verses and the following ones, has been called 'Sijjin' for the former and 'Illiyin' for the latter. In short, according to this commentary, 'Sijjin' is the ledger, the complete work, in which all the deeds of the Wicked are recorded. It is called 'Sijjin’, perhaps for the reason that its contents cause the Wicked to be imprisoned in Hell. Or, the book, itself, is in the bottom of Hell, in contrast with the book of the Righteous, which is in 'Illiyin’ of Heaven.

2. The second commentary says that 'Sijjin' means 'Hell', which is a very big prison for the Wicked, or it is a terrible site in Hell, and the meaning of

is 'the destiny of the Wicked' which is inscribed for them. Therefore, the verse means: surely the destiny of the Wicked is in Hell. There are many examples of the application of the meaning of the term 'book', in the Holy Qur'an, with this sense. For instance, in Surah Nisa, No. 4 verse 24, after saying that:

it says:

And, Surah Anfal, No.8, verse 75 says:

The matter that attests to this commentary is that 'Sijjin' has been commented on as being Hell, the same meaning as the narrations and Islamic works have. In the commentary of 'Ali-ibn-Ibrahim for the meaning of the verse:

it is said that: their appointed chastisement is in

A narration from Imam Baqir (as) also says:

is the seventh earth and

is the seventh heaven (indicating the lowest and the highest places)”. ¹¹

There are many narrations which say that the deeds which are not fit to be accepted by Allah will descend and fall in Sijjin. A tradition from the Prophet (S) says that:

“Sometimes it happens that the appointed angel, for gathering up the deeds of a servant, ascends joyfully with a good deed of the servant. Then Allah says: 'Put it in Sijjin, because the servant did not seek My Countenance in it'." ¹²

On the whole, it is understood from the narrations that 'Sijjin' is a very low place in Hell, where the wrong actions or the record of the evil deeds of the Wicked are sent to, or their destiny is for them to be imprisoned therein. According to this commentary, the verse

is an emphasis on the verse

(not as a commentary for Sijjin). Then the verse means that this is a punishment inscribed for them, surely. The term /marqum/ is based on /raqm/ 'large, bold writing' and since these writings are clear and unambiguous, the term may refer to the decisiveness and clearness of it. These two commentaries can be considered together, because in the first commentary 'Sijjin' means 'the ledger of the deeds of the Wicked', and in the second one it means Hell or the bottom of the earth. And it is clear that these are 'causes and effects' for each other. That is, when the record of a person is registered in 'the ledger of the deeds of the Wicked', it results in their being sent to the lowest point of Hell.

In the last verse of this portion, in a startling short sentence, the end to come of those who deny the Resurrection is pointed out. It says:

It is the denial from which the various sins, including dealing in fraud and transgression, originate. In the first verse it says:

and now it says:

which briefly, but meaningfully, points to the kinds of painful and horrible chastisements awaiting them. It is noteworthy that in the first verse

and then in verse seven,

and in verse ten

are mentioned. This shows that there is a close connection between denying the Resurrection and those deeds. The relationship between these will be dealt with more clearly in the following verses.

Footnotes

1. 11. Nur-uth-Thaqalayn, vol. 5, p. 530, Tradition 15
2. 12. Nur-uth-Thaqalayn, vol, 5, p. 530, Tradition 19