This sūrah was revealed as a counterattack against Abū Lahab’s and his wife’s hostile campaign. God took it upon Himself to say the final word on behalf of His Messenger.
“Doomed are the hands of Abū Lahab; doomed is he.” (Verse 1) The Arabic term, tabba, rendered here as ‘doomed’ also signifies failure and cutting off. The term is used twice in two different senses. It is used first as a prayer, while in the second instance it implies that the prayer has been already answered. So, in one short verse, an action is realized which draws the curtains upon a battle scene. What later follows is merely a description of what took place with the remark that “his wealth and his gains shall avail him nothing.” (Verse 2) He can have no escape. He is defeated, vanquished and damned.
This was his fate in this world, but in the hereafter “he shall have to endure a flaming fire.” (Verse 3) The fire is described as having flames in order to emphasize that it is raging.
“And his wife, the carrier of firewood,” will reside there with him having “a rope of palm-fibre round her neck,” with which, as it were, she is being dragged into hell, or which she used for fastening wood bundles together, according to whether a literal or metaphorical interpretation of the text is adopted.
The language of this sūrah achieves remarkable harmony between the subject matter and the atmosphere built around it. Abū Lahab will be plunged into a fire with lahab, which is the Arabic for flames; and his wife who carries the wood, a fuel, will be met with the same fire with a palm-fibre rope around her neck. Hell, with its fiercely burning lahab, or flames, will be inhabited by Abū Lahab. At the same time his wife, who collects thorns and sharp woods, materials which can significantly increase the blaze of a fire, puts them all in the Prophet’s way. Hence, she will, in time, be dragged into hell with a rope tied round her neck, bundled like firewood.
How perfectly matched are the words and the pictures portrayed: the punishment is presented as being of the same nature as the deed: wood, ropes, fire and lahab! Phonetically, the words are arranged in a way which provides wonderful harmony between the sounds made by the tying of wood into bundles and pulling the neck by ropes. Read in Arabic the opening verse, “Tabbat yadā abī Lahabin wa tabb.” You will not fail to note that it sounds like a hard sharp tug, analogous to that of bundles of wood or an unwilling person being dragged by the neck into a wild fire; all is in phase with the fury and violent, bellicose tone that goes with the theme of the sūrah. Thus, in five short verses making up one of the shortest sūrahs in the Qur’ān, the vocal melodies click neatly with the actual movement of the scene portrayed.
This extremely rich and powerful style led Umm Jamīl to claim that the Prophet was in fact satirizing her and her husband. This arrogant and vain woman could not get over being referred to by such a humiliating phrase as ‘the carrier of firewood,’ who ‘shall have a rope of palm fibre round her neck.’ Her rage grew wilder when the sūrah became popular among the Arab tribes who greatly appreciated such fine literary style! Ibn Isĥāq relates: “Umm Jamīl, I was told, having heard what the Qur’ān said about her and her husband, came to the Prophet who was with Abū Bakr at the Ka`bah. She was carrying a handful of stones. God took her sight away from the Prophet and she saw only Abū Bakr to whom she said, ‘Where is your comrade? I have heard that he has been satirizing me. Were I to find him, I would throw these stones right into his face. I, too, am gifted in poetry.’ Then she chanted before leaving:
The contemptible we obey not! Nor what he says shall we accept! “Abū Bakr turned around to the Prophet and said, ‘Do you think that she saw you?’ ‘No,’ replied the Prophet, ‘God made her unable to see me.
Al-Bazzār relates on Ibn `Abbās’s authority that “when this sūrah was revealed Abū Lahab’s wife sought the Prophet. While he was with Abū Bakr she appeared.
Abū Bakr suggested to the Prophet: ‘She will not harm you if you move out of her sight.’ ‘Do not worry,’ said the Prophet in a soothing manner. ‘She will not see me.’ She came to Abū Bakr and said: ‘Your friend has lampooned us!’ ‘By the Lord of this Ka`bah, he has not,’ Abū Bakr assured her. ‘He is no poet and what he says is not poetry,’ he added. She said, ‘I believe you,’ and then left. Abū Bakr then enquired from the Prophet whether she had seen him and he said, ‘No, an angel was shielding me all the time she was here.’ So much was her fury and her indignation at what she thought was poetry and which Abū Bakr rightly refuted.
Thus, the humiliating picture of Abū Lahab and his wife has been recorded to last forever in this eternal book, the Qur’ān, to show God’s anger with them for their animosity towards His Messenger and message. All those who choose to take a similar attitude towards Islam, therefore, will meet with the same disgrace, humiliation and frustration, both in this life and in the life to come.