Tafsir of Fussilat 41:19

"And the Day when the enemies of Allah are gathered to the Fire, then they will be driven in rows."

[Linguistic Readings] It is read as yuhsharū (passive voice). It is also read as nahshuru (with an n and the shīn vocalized with either a ḍamma or a kasra). It is also read as yahshuru (active voice), meaning: Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, gathers the enemies of Allah—the disbelievers from the first and the last.

[Exegesis]

• "Driven in rows" (yūza‘ūn): Meaning, the first of them are held back for the last of them. That is, the ones in front are made to wait until those following them catch up. This is an expression denoting the vast number of the people of the Fire—we ask Allah to protect us from it by the breadth of His mercy.

• "If you ask: What is the nature of 'mā' in His saying: 'Until, when they reach it' (ḥattā idhā mā jā’ūhā)?" I say: It is an augmentative particle for emphasis. The meaning of the emphasis here is that the time of their arrival at the Fire is inevitably the time of the testimony against them; there is no possibility for it to be otherwise. Similar to this is His saying: "Is it then, when it has occurred, that you will believe in it?" (Yunus: 51). Meaning: The time of its occurrence must necessarily be the time of their belief.

• "The testimony of the skins": This refers to the touching of forbidden things and similar acts that lead to prohibited deeds.

• "If you ask: How do their limbs testify against them, and how do they speak?" I say: Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, makes them speak just as He made the tree speak, by creating speech within them. It has been said that "skins" refers to the limbs. It has also been said that it is a metonymy for the private parts.

• "Everything": By "everything," He means every living creature, just as He meant by His saying: "And Allah is over all things competent" (Al-Baqarah: 284), everything that is capable of being decreed. The meaning is: Our making them speak is not a wonder compared to the power of Allah, who is capable of making every animal speak, of creating you and bringing you into existence the first time, and of returning you and bringing you back to His recompense.

• "They said to them: 'Why have you testified against us?'" They said this because of the magnitude of the testimony against them and the severity of the disgrace they felt at the hands of their own limbs.

"And you were not covering yourselves, lest your hearing, your sight, or your skins would testify against you; but you assumed that Allah does not know much of what you do. And that was your assumption which you assumed about your Lord. It has brought you to ruin, and you have become among the losers."