The Reminder · Surah 111
The Rope of Fibres
Abu Lahab and the futility of his wealth.
THE REMINDER · SURAH 111
The Rope of Fibresالمسد
سورة المسد
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S111:V1May both hands of Abu Lahab perish, and may he himself perish! تَبَّتْ يَدَآ أَبِى لَهَبٍ وَتَبَّ
S111:V2His wealth has been of no use to him, nor has what he acquired.مَآ أَغْنَىٰ عَنْهُ مَالُهُۥ وَمَا كَسَبَ
S111:V3He will burn in a Fire with an intense flame,سَيَصْلَىٰ نَارًا ذَاتَ لَهَبٍ
S111:V4as will his wife, the wood-carrier,وَٱمْرَأَتُهُۥ حَمَّالَةَ ٱلْحَطَبِ
S111:V5with a rope of fibres around her neck.فِى جِيدِهَا حَبْلٌ مِّن مَّسَدٍۭ
Commentary
Abu Lahab was the prophet Muhammad’s uncle and his most relentless detractor. Throughout his life, he never stopped plotting against him, to destroy him and oppose God’s religion, but all his plots failed and he ended up utterly defeated. God did indeed cause him to die a painful and humiliating death, as He did his wife. This surah is one of God’s signs, because in it God announces the coming deaths of Abu Lahab and his wife, and even specifies how his wife will die. Her death was indeed unusual, since she died strangled by the rope of fibres that she fastened around her neck to carry wood.