Tafsir of Surat al-Humazah.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and his Companions, and upon those who follow them with excellence until the Day of Judgment.
As for what follows:
This is the one-hundredth meeting of the weekly meetings known as: The Open Door Meeting, and this takes place on Thursday, the twenty-first of the month of Rabi' al-Awwal, in the year 1416. We begin this meeting by discussing the tafsir of this surah as much as is facilitated, which is His saying, Blessed and Exalted is He:
:
In this surah, Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, begins with the word: : which is a word of warning, meaning that it indicates the certainty of a warning for whoever is characterized by these traits: al-Humazah, al-Lumazah, and so on. It was said: that "Wail" is the name of a valley in Hell, but the first opinion is more correct.
"Every" is from the forms of generality. Al-Humazah and al-Lumazah are two descriptions for one described person. Do they have the same meaning?
Meaning, do al-Humazah and al-Lumazah have the same meaning, or do they differ in meaning?
Some scholars said that they are two words for one meaning, meaning: that al-Humazah is al-Lumazah.
And some of them said: rather, each of them has a meaning different from the meaning of the other.
And there is a rule, and I would like to point it out in tafsir and other than tafsir, which is: "That when the matter revolves around whether a word is with the other word having one meaning, or each word having a meaning, then we follow the second", meaning: we assign a meaning to each one, because if we make the two words have one meaning, there would be a repetition in this with no need for it, but if we assign a meaning to each one, this becomes an establishment and a distinction between the two words.
And the correct view regarding this verse is that there is a difference between them, so al-Humazah is by action, and al-Lumazah is by the tongue, as Allah, the Exalted, said: .
Al-Humazah by action means: that he mocks people by his action, either by twisting his face, or frowning with his face, or something similar to that, or by pointing, meaning: he points to a specific person, saying "look at him" to criticize him, or something similar to that. So al-Humazah is by action, and al-Lumazah is by the tongue, meaning: that some people, may Allah protect us from that, are obsessed with the faults of people, either by his action, which is al-Humazah, or by his speech, which is al-Lumazah. And this is like His saying, the Exalted: .
: This is also among his ugly descriptions, al-Jammā' al-Mannā', he gathers wealth and withholds giving, so he is stingy and does not give. He gathers wealth and counts it. It was said: the meaning of counting is: enumeration, meaning: because of his obsession with wealth, every time he goes to the box he counts, he counts the dirhams in the box in the morning and at the end of the day he counts them, and he knows that he has not taken anything from it and has not added anything to it, but because of the intensity of his obsession with wealth, he keeps returning to it and counting it. For this reason, it came in the form of exaggeration, "he counted it": meaning he counted it excessively. Why?
Because of the intensity of his obsession and love for it, he fears that it may have decreased, or he wants more reassurance about what came before, so he is always counting the wealth.
And it was said that the meaning of "he counted it" is: he made it a provision for him, meaning he saved it for the emergencies of time. And although the wording allows for this, it is far-fetched, because preparing wealth for the emergencies of time while fulfilling the obligatory by paying what is due in it of zakah and rights is not blameworthy. The blameworthy thing is for the greatest concern of a person to be wealth, that he keeps returning to it and counting it and looking to see if it has increased or decreased. So the statement that the intended meaning of "he counted it" is: he prepared it for the future, is a weak statement.

So he says in this verse: meaning: has he made his mention immortal or prolonged his life? And the matter is not so, for if the people of wealth are not known for giving and generosity, they are immortalized, but by bad mention, and it is said: "stingier than so-and-so" and "stingier than so-and-so," and he is mentioned in gatherings and criticized.
For this reason, He said: :
"Nay": here the scholars call it a letter of restraint, meaning: it restrains this speaker or this calculator from his speech or from his calculation. And it is possible that it means: truly, meaning truly he will be cast, and both are correct.
This man will not be immortalized by his wealth, and his mention will not be immortalized, but he will be forgotten and his mention will be folded away, and perhaps he will be mentioned with evil for not fulfilling what Allah has obligated upon him of giving.

And if we say that the lam is in the answer to the oath, this sentence becomes confirmed by the lam, the nun of confirmation, and the deleted oath. And such things are many in the Noble Qur'an, meaning: the confirmation of a thing by the oath, the lam, and the nun, this is something common in the Qur'an, and Allah, the Exalted, swears by a thing to confirm it and to magnify its status.
And His saying: What is cast? Is it the owner of the wealth or the wealth?
We may say both are cast. As for the owner of the wealth, Allah says in another verse: they are driven and pushed with hands or with what Allah wills. And here He says: he is cast, meaning: thrown into al-Hatamah. And al-Hatamah is: that which crushes a thing, meaning it shatters and breaks it. So what is it?
Allah, the Exalted, said: And this form is for magnification and glorification.
So it is a fire of justice and not a fire of injustice, because burning with fire may be injustice and may be justice. So the punishment of the disbelievers with fire is undoubtedly justice, and it is praised for the Lord, Mighty and Majestic, where He treated these people with what they deserve. And consider His saying: with the action of this doer: al-Humazah, al-Lumazah, al-Hatamah, on the same pattern, so that the recompense matches the action even in the wording.
Meaning: the blazing, the burning.
: The hearts is the plural of heart, and the meaning is that it reaches the hearts -may Allah protect us from that- because of the intensity of its heat, even though the hearts are hidden in the chests and between them and the outer skin are the layers between them, but despite that, this fire reaches the hearts.
Meaning: al-Hatamah, which is the fire of Allah that is kindled.
Upon whom?
Upon the al-Humazah, the al-Lumazah, the gatherer of wealth, the withholder of good. And He did not say: that it is upon him, even though the referent is singular, , but He repeated the pronoun with the wording of the plural considering the meaning, because every al-Humazah is general, encompassing all al-Humazahs and all al-Lumazahs.
Meaning: closed, the doors are closed and no relief is hoped for them, may Allah protect us from that.
Meaning: they are raised to its doors so that they hope to exit, and then after that they are turned back into it and returned into it. All this is because of the intensity of the torment, because when a person hopes for relief and that he will be saved and delivered, he rejoices. And when he is returned, it becomes a new setback, may Allah protect us from that. So this is how they are tormented in their souls and their bodies. And the torment of the people of the Fire is mentioned and detailed in the Noble Qur'an and the Prophetic Sunnah.
Meaning: closed. Consider now, if for example a person was in a room or in a car where fires spread and he has no exit, the doors are closed, what would they be? In great grief! There is no grief that can compare to their grief, may Allah protect us from that. So this is in the Fire, closed.
Meaning: that this fire is closed and upon it are extended pillars, meaning like what we say: great bars, so that no one attempts to open it.
Meaning: extended in all directions and corners so that no one is able to open it or exit from it. Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, narrated that to us and explained it to us, not just so that we recite it with our tongues or know its meaning with our understanding, but the intended meaning is that we should be warned from that, that we should be warned from these blameworthy descriptions: criticizing people by speech, criticizing people by action, the greed for wealth until it is as if the person was only created for wealth to immortalize it or to immortalize himself for it. And we know that whoever is in this state, then his recompense is this fire which is as Allah described it: al-Hatamah, it rises to the hearts, closed, upon extended pillars. We ask Allah, the Exalted, to protect us and you from it, and to grant us sincerity in speech and action and uprightness upon His religion.
Now it is time for questions, and we begin with the oath.