Sūrah 111 · Āyāt 4–5

Sūrat al-Masad 4–5 — And his wife, the carrier of firewood, upon her neck a rope of masad

The sentence now widens to Abū Lahab's wife. The present sources first fix who she was: Umm Jamīl bint Ḥarb, the sister of Abū Sufyān (al-Ṭabarsī; al-Ṭūsī adds "the paternal aunt of Muʿāwiya"). Tafsīr al-Qummī names her "Umm Jamīl bint Ṣakhr" — a transmission variant, since Abū Sufyān's own name is Ṣakhr ibn Ḥarb, so the standard genealogy makes her his sister (bint Ḥarb), not his daughter; recorded as transmitted and flagged.

Three readings of "carrier of firewood." The sources lay out the same spectrum. (1) Literal: she carried thorns and thornbushes and strewed them in the Prophet's path to his prayer — al-Ṭabarsī (from Ibn ʿAbbās, and al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas's vivid "so that he would tread upon them as one of you treads upon silk") and al-Ṭūsī (Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Ḍaḥḥāk, Ibn Zayd). (2) Metaphorical — tale-bearing (namīma): she "kindled enmity's fire by incitement as fire is kindled by firewood," so ḥaṭab names slander (al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī, from ʿIkrima, Mujāhid, Qatāda, al-Suddī; Ṭabarsī cites the Arab idiom "so-and-so gathers firewood against so-and-so"). Tafsīr al-Qummī fuses the two: she "used to slander the Messenger and carry his sayings to the unbelievers." (3) Eschatological — carrier of sins: "the carrier of misdeeds," likened by Ṭabarsī (from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, Abū Muslim) to {they bear their burdens upon their backs} [6:31]. The Enlightening Commentary lists all three and judges the first "the most appropriate, though the combination of them all is not impossible."

The rope of masad. Lexically the sources agree: masad is a rope of twisted palm-fibre, jīd the neck, and the image is one of "abasement and disdain" (al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī, al-Mīzān). Beyond the literal, Ṭabarsī gathers the harsher traditions — a rope combining "the coarseness of fibre, the heat of fire, and the heaviness of iron"; or (from Ibn ʿAbbās and ʿUrwa) an iron chain "seventy cubits long" in Hell; or (from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab) her own precious jewel-necklace, which she vowed to "spend in enmity against Muḥammad," turned into her torment. Tafsīr al-Qummī reads "rope of masad" itself as "of fire" — a non-literal gloss noted alongside the others.

Al-Mīzān's two contributions. First, a grammatical-theological reading: "his wife" is conjoined to the hidden subject of {he will enter} (so "his wife too will enter the Fire"), and the verses depict her embodied in Hell in her worldly form — still carrying firewood, the rope at her neck, punished by the very instrument of her hostility. Second, al-Mīzān (engaging al-Ṭabarsī's own question) closes the surah on free will and decree: since the Qurʾān foretold Abū Lahab's damnation, was he still obliged — and able — to believe? Both answer yes. Ṭabarsī: God's threat was conditioned on his not believing. Al-Mīzān deepens it: God's inexorable decree attaches to the act as a voluntary act, so foreknowledge never cancels choice — "Abū Lahab had it within his own choice to believe and be saved," like the other "they will not believe" verses (Q 2:6; 36:7). The Enlightening Commentary draws the lasting lessons: the prophecy fulfilled is "a sign of the miracle of the Qurʾān," and "relationship is not a reason for faith" — kinship to the Prophet availed Abū Lahab nothing, while the believing outsider (Salmān) became "of our Ahl al-Bayt." (Al-Burhān is silent on these two āyāt; its wife-gloss survives only inside the al-Qummī narration recorded above.)