At-Tawbah: (35) The Day when it will be heated...

His saying, Exalted is He, "The Day" is in the accusative case due to [the word] "painful punishment" or due to an implicit word indicated by it; that is, "They will be punished on the Day," or it is dependent upon a verb of remembrance. It is said: the estimation is "the punishment of a Day," and the estimated word is a substitute for the mentioned one; when the possessor (mudaf) was omitted, the possessed (mudaf ilayhi) was raised to its place.

"When it will be heated in the fire of Hell": that is, the fire, which possesses intense heat and burning, will be kindled upon them. Its root is tuhma (it is heated) by fire, from your saying, "I heated (hamaytu) the branding iron and I made it hot (ahmaytuhu)." The heating was attributed to the fire as a form of hyperbole, because the fire itself is inherently hot; so when it is described as being heated, it indicates the intensity of its blaze. Then, the word "fire" was omitted, and the attribution was shifted to the prepositional phrase (jar wa majrur) to signal the intended meaning in the most perfect manner. Thus, it shifted from the feminine form to the masculine, as when you say, "The matter (al-qissah) was raised (rufi'at) to the Prince," but if you discard "the matter" and attribute the action to the prepositional phrase, you say, "It was raised (rufi'a) to the Prince."

It is reported from Ibn 'Amir that he read it as tuhma with the ta (feminine), attributing it to the fire, as is its original state. The reason it is said "upon them (alayha)"—while the mentioned [assets] are two things—is that the intention here is not a specific measure of them, nor is it the genus that applies to both small and large quantities. Rather, the intention is the large quantity of dinars and dirhams, because that is what constitutes a treasure (kanz). Therefore, he brought the plural pronoun to indicate the abundance; had he brought the dual pronoun, the opposite might have been presumed. The same is said regarding His saying, Exalted is He: "And do not spend them." It is also said that the pronoun refers to the treasures of wealth understood from the discourse, thus making the ruling general; that is why he refrained from using the manifest noun. The specification of gold and silver by mention is because they are the original and predominant forms of wealth, not for the sake of exclusivity, or it is limited to silver because it is more abundant and people are in greater need of it, and because gold is understood to be included through it by way of priority (tariq al-awla), despite their proximity in wording.

"Then their foreheads, their sides, and their backs will be branded with it": These were specifically mentioned because the purpose of the hoarders in hoarding and gathering is to be perceived by people as having status and leadership due to wealth, and to enjoy delectable foods and splendid clothing. Because of their need for status, the branding is on their foreheads; because their sides were filled with food, they are branded upon them; and because of what they wore upon their backs, they are branded [there]. Or, [this is] because when they saw the poor beggar, they would wrinkle the space between their eyes (zawwaw ma bayna a'yunihim), turn away from him, avoid him, fold their sides (tawaw kashhan), turn their backs to him, and face another direction. Or, [it is] because these are the most noble of the external limbs, as they encompass the principal organs, which are the brain, the heart, and the liver.

It is said: because these are the foundations of the four directions which are the front of the body, its back, and its two sides; thus, what is mentioned is a metonymy for the entire body. The point remains regarding the restriction to these four out of the six directions. Some have labored to explain this by saying that the hoarder, at the time of hoarding, out of fear that someone might see him, looks right, left, front, and behind, and hardly looks up or imagines that anyone is watching him from below. Since those four directions were the focus of his gaze and the object of his caution, to the exclusion of the other two, he was restricted to them. This, while built upon the consideration of burial in hoarding, remains a matter of contention, as is not hidden.

It is said: these locations were specified because their interior is a cavity, unlike the hand and foot. The objection to this is that the stomach is also a cavity, and there is a subtlety in its being gathered with the back as well. It is also said: because the forehead is the place of branding due to its prominence, the side is the place of pain, and the back is the place of punishments, because what drives the hoarder to hoard and not spend is the fear of poverty—which is the "red death"—as it is the cause of toil, the sweat of the brow, and restlessness right and left, and the lack of stability of the side in seeking a livelihood, while the person possesses nothing to lean upon or rely on in important matters. Therefore, in consideration of the security from toil and the sweat of the brow, his forehead is branded; in consideration of the security from restlessness and the greed for the stability of the side, his side is branded; and in consideration of the relying of the back and the leaning upon what he deems the strongest support and the most sufficient refuge, his back is branded. Other things have been said as well, and these are sayings that resemble one another, and Allah, Exalted is He, knows the truth of the matter.

Regardless of which, the meaning is not that one dinar is placed upon another, or one dirham upon another, and he is branded with them all at once, nor that he is branded by each [individually] by removing one and placing another in its stead until the last of them is reached. Rather, the skin of the hoarder is expanded, so that every dinar and dirham is placed individually, as the traditions have spoken and the reports have corroborated.

"This is what you hoarded": This is on the basis of implying a verb of saying. The aforementioned adverbial phrase is connected to this in the sense of: "It is said to them on the Day when it will be heated upon them, 'This is what you hoarded for yourselves.'" That is, for its benefit, so it became the very source of its harm and the cause of its torment; thus, the lam is for explanation (ta'lil). You are free in your estimation of the omitted word in the construction, and you should not make the lam [indicate] possession, for it would yield no benefit.

"What" in His saying, Exalted is He, "So taste what you used to hoard": It is possible that it is a verbal noun (masdariyyah), meaning "the calamity of your hoarding" or "the calamity of your being hoarders." The former is considered more likely because there is discussion regarding whether the incomplete verb kana (to be) has a verbal noun, and because the objective is the information, while kana was only mentioned to summon the past image. It is also possible that it is relative (mawsulah), meaning "the calamity of that which you hoard." In the discourse, there is an implied metaphor (isti'arah makniyyah), an imaginative one (takhayyuliyyah), or a consequential one (taba'iyyah). It was read tanzun (you hoard) with a damma on the nun, then the past tense is kanaza, like daraba (he struck) and qa'ada (he sat).