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The Qur’an, Qur’anic Exegesis and Muslim Traditions: The Case of zamharīr (Q. 76:13)

Among Hell’s Punishments

In Islam, as in every other religious tradition, it is possible to distinguish different

kinds of exegetical discourse. Taking as a reference point the relationship between the

Qur’an and the exegetical narratives found in the tafāsīr, some of these narratives

appear to be a direct product of the explicit wording of the Qur’an; others are the

product of the need to explain a problematic or ambiguous word in the holy text; and

finally other exegetical narratives appear to be not so explicitly related to the word

of the Qur’an.1 Different interrelationships between the Qur’an and exegesis also

necessarily reflect a difference in the quantity of material and traditions. Where the

Qur’an is consistent and rich with particulars, such as in some of the stories about the

prophets, or in some descriptions of the eschatological abodes of Paradise and Hell,

we usually have a profusion of later exegetical material further enriching the text.

In this sense the work of the mufassir is one of collecting, selecting, choosing, or

meaningfully omitting. As a small contribution to the study of the various exegetical

attitudes, I shall here discuss a topic related to one individual Qur’anic word. What

will emerge from this scrutiny is the outline of an exegesis that is partially ex silentio,

and not a discussion on how various authors dealt with this particular term. Apart from

the treatment of the word in the commentaries, we shall further review the traditional

reports and later religious literature which mention the term to see how it is dealt with,

thus delineating the relation of later literature to Qur’anic exegesis and to the Qur’anic

text itself.

The word to be discussed here is zamharīr, a hapax legomenon appearing only in

Q. 76:13 where, describing Paradise, it is stated that people therein they shall see

neither sun nor zamharīr. This is the only aya in which this word appears and we have no other internal evidence from the Qur’an that sheds light upon its meaning.

One quite logical explanation is that offered by those interpretations stating that the

meaning of zamharīr is ‘moon’, an explanation which relies upon the meaning

attested in an Arabic dialect.2 Thus the aya means that in Paradise people will have

neither sun nor moon.3 A different explanation is posited by those hypotheses which

state that zamharīr instead means ‘cold’, or better, ‘bitter cold’.4 This meaning is not

contrary to the first one but probably bears the sign of a shift in the meaning from

moon to lunar coldness and thus simply ‘cold’: the sun is accordingly to be under-

stood as signifying heat. The aya consequently means that people in Paradise will be

affected neither by excessive heat nor excessive cold.5 This interpretation is suggested

as an explanation by the oldest surviving commentary, that of Muqātil ibn Sulaymān

(d. 150/767), according to which ‘the cold of the zamharīr does not hurt them [i.e.

people in Paradise] since in it [i.e. in Paradise] there is no winter nor summer’.6 Lastly,

but more significantly in terms of our discussion, there are mufassirūn who advocate

the interpretation of zamharīr as cold, and who, relying upon traditions, ultimately state

that it is a kind of punishment (‘lawn min al-ʿadhāb’).7 The meaning evoked by the use

of the term ʿadhāb points clearly to the punishment of men after death, in the grave or

in Hell, though this explanation is not explicitly stated in these exegetical reports.

In general, moving from the contents of exegetical reports to the attitudes of the

exegetes collecting them, it can be said that the Qur’anic commentaries, here as in

many other passages, list the various interpretations without stating an explicit

preference for one of them. Clearly here, as in all cases, an indirect preference can be

argued from ex silentio evidence. In fact only a few of them mention the brief

statement that zamharīr is a kind of punishment and even fewer quote any of the main

traditions on the subject that will be discussed below. The most detailed author on the

subject is al-Qurṭubī, who explains that the punishment consists in subjecting the

damned alternatively to cold and hot,8 and that the damned are taken out of the fire

and put into the icy cold of the zamharīr.9 As is explained, this cold does not provide

any help against the fire of Hell, since it is so intense that when the damned are put in,

and there punished, they immediately ask God to be put back again in the fire which

they consider more bearable.10

Apart from this, no further insights can be extracted from the commentaries to explain

other ayas which have sometimes been read as referring to zamharīr, such as, above

all, Q. 38:57–8. Here, among the punishments, there is mention of ḥamīm, ghassāq

and ākhar min shaklihi azwāj, that is, ‘boiling water’, ‘infected liquid’ and ‘another of

a similar kind’. All exegetes usually explain the second term or the third (indefinite)

one as meaning cold, but only a few of them go any further. Some exegetes here

suggest that this third punishment ‘of a similar kind’ is zamharīr, or state that ghassāq

itself means zamharīr. All commentators, in any case, maintain that one or other term

signifies a cold, cold punishment, adding nothing else to give further information.

Nothing new comes from these passages: the simple reference to the zamharīr alludes

to the beliefs discussed above, but the question of its precise meaning is never

discussed here, though sometimes it is added that zamharīr burns like fire.11

The extent and the relevance of this ‘type of punishment’ explanation is made clear by

a body of later traditions which are seldom included in commentaries. According to

reports mentioned in Ḥadīth literature, eschatological literature, etc., zamharīr

emerges as a place or a condition in Hell. Its peculiarity – following the meaning of

the word as ‘bitter cold’ – is that the damned are punished in it or by it through its

extreme cold. Zamharīr thus stands for the punishment of cold in Hell, thereby

Notes, Reports and Correspondence 143

introducing this type of punishment among the various other kinds which are mostly

characterised by ‘hot’ and ‘extremely hot’ punishments. Muslim Hell, as we see from

the Qur’an, is in fact above all a realm of fire.12

In Islamic literature, the most prominent occurrence of the term zamharīr is in a ḥadīth

from the Prophet included in the Ṣaḥīḥayn of al-Bukhārī and Muslim in which it is

stated, according to Abū Hurayra, that Hell complains to God because parts of it

consume each other, due to their fire and heat. God permits it to take two breaths a

year, one in summer and one in winter. According to some versions, the most extreme

cold in winter comes from ‘the zamharīr of Gehenna’ (‘min zamharīr Jahannam’/

‘min zamharīrihā’) just as the most extreme heat in summer comes from the heat of

Hell (‘min ḥarr al-nār’/‘min samūmihā/min ḥarrihā’).13 There can be no doubt: in

Hell there is a zamharīr that means something cold, though it is not explicitly stated if

it is a kind of punishment or a peculiarly cold place. But most relevantly, some other

versions are less clear precisely on the point of interest to us. In these versions it is

said that the Prophet simply said, following a similar introduction, that ‘when Hell

breathes in winter this is the zamharīr’.14 This version can easily be understood as

making reference to a peculiar kind of cold on earth which takes this name and thus

does not originate from Hell.

The eschatological meaning of the word is, however, further attested in other reports

mentioned in some literature of the same age. Ibn Abī’l-Dunyā (d. 281/894) quotes a

number of reports on the question. In one of these it is stated explicitly that zamharīr

is a particular place of cold in Hell, with the function of being a punishment. In one of

the traditions he quotes, the inhabitants of Hell ask Hell’s doorkeeper if they can

leave, but when they are outside they are so tormented by cold and zamharīr that they

come back to the hot Hell because the cold is so unbearable.15 Furthermore, in another

report going back to Mujāhid, ‘in Hell there is a zamharīr by which [the damned] are

punished. They escape from it [i.e. the Hell] towards that zamharīr, fall into it and

their bones are broken into pieces to the point that their sound is heard.’16

Other reports in some later literature further explore this aspect, leaving no doubt that

zamharīr is one of Hell’s punishments. So, when listing their various forms, it is said

that Hell’s punishments include heat, cold (zamharīr), thirst, starvation, etc. Zamharīr

in this case is the bitter cold by which disbelievers are punished in Hell.17 In a

tradition going back to Kaʿb (al-Aḥbār) and quoted by Abū Nuʿaym we find once

again the motif that the zamharīr is such a cold place that the damned there implore to

be put in the infernal heat of Gehenna.18 And its effect is similar to that of fire: the

zamharīr burns through its cold just as fire burns with its heat.19 We also find a belief

only signalled by Ibn al-Jawzī, according to which in Hell there are 32 grades or

differing positions (martaba): sixteen of them involve zamharīr or something of that

kind, while in the others there is fire (ḥarīq) or similar punishments.20

144 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

So far, in these reports, it is not stated beyond doubt that zamharīr is a particular

place, but it can be easily understood as a condition, a state of peculiar coldness. In

other reports, based on a tradition mentioned first by al-Bayhaqī and traced back to

him in later literature, and which goes back to the companions Abū Hurayra or Abū

Saʿīd al-Khudrī, a further step is taken in this direction. It tells how, during extremely

hot and extremely cold days, God listens to the believers. He hears them invoking

God to be protected from the heat of the Gehenna and from the zamharīr of the

Gehenna (‘ajirnī min zamharīr jahannam’). God then informs Hell, in the case of

cold, that He concedes protection when the believer asks for it from ‘its’ zamharīr

(‘in ʿabdan … istajāranī min zamharīriki’). To the further question (asked by people

listening to this report) about what this zamharīr is, the answer is that it is a pit (jubb)

where the bodies of the damned are broken into pieces.21 What is more relevant here

is the construction of the account: after the mention of the zamharīr, as in the ḥadīth

from Abū Hurayra and other reports, it is necessary to ask what it is, and the answer

given in response is that the zamharīr is a physical place in Hell.

Until now we have seen that while there can be no doubt about the meaning of

zamharīr in connection to cold in traditional reports, it appears that the term can be

intended as indicating a range of similar meanings: a peculiar extreme cold on earth, a

cold originating and present as punishment in Hell, or even a place so characterised in

Hell. Differing answers can be argued from the accounts. This is reflected also in some

other occurrences of the term, in which zamharīr is proverbially quoted to point to a

terrible cold, where it is not clear or explicit if reference is made to a punishment or to

a place in Hell so called, or simply to the proper meaning of the word as denoting a

painful cold. An episode of this kind is that recounting how a certain Zubayd al-Yāmī

woke up during the night and reached for a vessel of water. Putting his hand inside it

he found the water so cold that he mentioned zamharīr. Prodigiously, his hand stuck

inside the vessel and he could not free it until the morning when the servant found

him.22 In other reports the term is used in similar ways, as a proverbial reference to a

bitter cold.23 Relevant also are the attestations of the same kind coming from non-

religious literature. Ibn Faḍlān – famous for his account of his travels in Slavic

territories – incidentally mentions the term when he says he arrived in a place so cold

with snow and icy winds that he could only think he had arrived at a ‘door of

the zamharīr’ (‘bāban min al-zamharīr’).24 ‘Door’ is a term that could be related to

the various levels or layers of Hell, or otherwise as pointing to a peculiar and definite

place, and possibly a place in Hell. Also of relevance is one of the few instances of the

term occurring in the geographical dictionary of Yāqūt where, to underline how cold a

place is, comparison is made to the zamharīr with the addition that this is one of the

punishments of the damned.25

All the material so far discussed attests to the use of the term and its meaning, and the

early circulation of some accounts pointing to a punishment in hell of that kind, and to

Notes, Reports and Correspondence 145

zamharīr as meaning a proverbial terrible state of cold. The general impression is,

however, that despite the progressive growth through the centuries of accounts on

eschatological themes, the zamharīr did not receive significant attention. This is

confirmed when one considers some genres of religious literature in which one would

expect to encounter the term, and even further development of the beliefs surrounding

it. In the narrative cycles of the miʿrāj, for instance, there are some mentions of

zamharīr, but the first impression is that these are less substantial than would be

expected. The punishment by cold, ice and wind, that is by zamharīr, could have been

enriched in details, following a pattern quite common in these so-called popular

traditions. But this is not the case and above all it is not the case in those accounts

which list so many categories of the damned and of punishments mostly connected to

images of fire and heat. In a few of the various versions of the miʿrāj work, and in

particular in the versions attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās, it is simply said that in Hell, along

with fire, boiling substances, and animals torturing the damned, there are also seventy

thousand pits (biʾr) of zamharīr.26 But that is the extent of the descriptions among all

the various versions, and in the long list of tortures and punishments given in all of

these versions. Furthermore, in the scores of versions of the story of Jesus and the

skull analysed elsewhere, which preserve long descriptions of Hell and its punish-

ments, only in one of all of these is mention made of zamharīr as the name of the

seventh layer of Hell.27 Other references do not add further details, though they attest

to the circulation of the term and concept. Al-Thaʿlabī, at the beginning of his Qiṣaṣ

al-anbiyāʾ, in its cosmogonic introduction, states that ‘God made the seventh earth a

dwelling place for Iblīs and his hosts. In it is his nest, on one side of which is the hot

wind (samūm) and on the other side the zamharīr’.28 This term and belief is also fully

attested in the Futūḥāt by Ibn al-ʿArabī, according to whom the torment of the cold

is the punishment of Iblīs and of the shayāṭīn.29 In any case, all of these references

constitute a scanty list of occurrences if compared to the hundreds of accounts and

traditions concerning punishments involving heat and fire. It seems that zamharīr

inspired prudence or otherwise did not inspire literary fantasies.

All the material relating as a whole to zamharīr in religious literature surely

constitutes a further step towards the exegetical qualification of it as ‘a kind of

punishment’, though later literature did not display any particular interest in the term

and in the concept itself, nor did it attest to a wide circulation of traditional accounts

on the subject. The peculiarities of the zamharīr we have described are taken from

various sources, including ancient sources, but were not consistently widespread or

evenly spread throughout the literature. In general, authors display a cautious attitude

which complies with that of the exegetes mentioned above. It thus can be suggested

that the meaning of the word zamharīr as indicating a punishment in Hell was

considered either controversial or at least not worthy of deep discussion by medieval

authors. The early evidence offered by Ḥadīth collections and Ibn Abī’l-Dunyā attest

146 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

that quite early, according to the asānīd in this literature, various reports regarding a

punishment and a place in Hell called zamharīr were circulating and accepted by

some. But this early acceptance did not gain wide relevance in literature. Doubts in

some cases are also expressed directly, by authors who wanted to defend the belief.

Commenting upon al-Bukhārī, Ibn Ḥajar states that zamharīr is bitter cold and that

according to some there are doubts about its presence in Hell. He adds that instead

there must be no doubts: in Hell there is a zamharīrī layer (‘ṭabaqa zamharīriyya’).30

The same is admitted by al-Zurqānī, who states that it is not possible to deny

(according to traditions) that in Gehenna there should be places (zawāyā) in which

there is fire and others in which there is zamharīr, and that they must be different

places and not conditions which are located next to each other in the same place.31

It appears that these authors were not fully convinced about the concept but according

to evidence – evidence mainly from the one ḥadīth from Abū Hurayra in the Ṣaḥīḥayn

which they quote, and not from the Qur’anic aya – they accepted the possibility that

there are states of coldness and cold punishments in Hell.

Because of this it is not unusual that authors of religious literature are explicit in their

cautious attitude towards zamharīr. It is interesting to note that the major work on the

afterlife, the Tadhkira of al-Qurṭubī, makes mention of zamharīr in only three

places.32 Though al-Suyūṭī includes a chapter entitled ‘Wuqūd jahannam wa-shiddat

ḥarrihā wa-zamharīrihā …’,33 this is brief and secondary in relation to the other

chapters about Hell’s punishments. Al-Ghazālī mentions zamharīr only once in the

chapter on death in his Iḥyāʾ.34 Ibn Kathīr, in his Nihāya includes only the two main

traditions, those from al-Bukhārī and from al-Bayhaqī. Only Ibn Rajab, much later,

has a longer chapter titled ‘Fī shiddat ḥarrihā wa-zamharīrihā’ including a paragraph

bearing the title ‘Faṣl fī zamharīr jahannam’, where the most significant traditions

are mentioned.35

A few conclusions can now be suggested. The first question to be addressed is the

significance of the belief in the concept of zamharīr in Islamic tradition. It is true, as

maintained in previous studies, that amongst its punishments the Islamic Hell also

includes the punishment of cold, but the literature as a whole displays differing

attitudes. The common basis is the acceptance of a generic belief which accords with

some versions of a saying going back to the Prophet which is consistent with the

Qur’anic aya where this term appears. Some of the oldest reports more clearly specify

that this zamharīr is not only a punishment, but also a particular place in Hell and that

the punishment there is caused by extreme cold. The following authors display

differing attitudes and do not seem to be completely convinced in the way that an

author such as Ibn Abī’l-Dunyā is. This is, by far, more evident not in the explicit

discussions of the question but in the generally sparse attention that is given to

zamharīr in literature about the afterlife, where this punishment barely rates a mention

when compared to the punishments involving heat and fire.

Notes, Reports and Correspondence 147

A number of hypotheses can be suggested to explain this situation. First of all, the

various meanings suggested for the term when quoted in the Qur’an are largely

similar. It is probable that zamharīr was originally used somewhere in the Arabian

Peninsula to refer to the moon and to lunar coldness. As regards the reluctance of

exegetes above all, but also medieval authors and collectors of religious traditions, to

address the term in detail it is not easy to find an answer. As already mentioned by

Miguel Asin Palacios in his famous essay discussing the Muslim sources of Dante’s

Divina Commedia, belief in a cold Hell was also known in Zoroastrian and Buddhist

traditions.36 Notwithstanding the origin of the belief itself, it can be suggested that

maybe this belief was felt to be typical of other religious cultures and thus was highly

suspect.37

Coming now to the exegetical questions introducing this short essay, it can be stated

that the exegetes, in general, did not consider this belief related to the Qur’anic

occurrence of the word or at least had strong doubts about it. The more logical

explanation that zamharīr means ‘moon’ is only sometimes followed by the

explanation that it may also mean a ‘kind of punishment’, and this appears as a result

of the circulation of traditions in that direction. In fact only a few mufassirūn give a

simple statement that zamharīr is also a kind of punishment, while some even remain

silent on the point, but that silence could not be the rule on this point is to be

connected to the mention of the term in the ḥadīth of the Prophet. It thus appears that

the narratives on zamharīr – that is the accounts relating to it – are not the product of

exegetical work on the term appearing in the Qur’an per se, but, nevertheless, since

the word zamharīr is quoted in the Qur’an exegetes could not help but allude to these

traditions in their exegeses. The scanty attention zamharīr received in popular

literature and reports amongst other literary genres attests that this belief was not

considered significant in regard to Hell’s punishments. No exegetical effort gave rise

to this tradition of the zamharīr, but exegetes as a whole employed silence or brief

references to minimise what was, after all, perceived as a secondary aspect of

eschatological descriptions and, thus, not even deserving of a more refined polemical

attitude.

ROBERTO TOTTOLI

NOTES

1 I have discussed this composite relation and the interplay between Qur’anic ayas and the exegetical discourse of the various genres of Muslim literature in R. Tottoli, ‘Qur’anic Narratives’ in A. Rippin (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Qur’an (Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006).

2 The dialect of the Ṭayyʾ. A verse by al-Thaʿlab with the meaning of ‘moon’ is usually quoted along with this explanation; see ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās, Kitāb gharīb al-Qurʾān, ed. Aḥmad Būlūṭ (Cairo: n.p., 1993), p. 74; Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (32 vols. Beirut: Dār

148 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

al-Fikr, n.p., 1990), vol. 30, p. 219; al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa’l-bayān (10 vols. Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 2002), vol. 10, p. 98; al-Māwardī, al-Nukat wa’l-ʿuyūn (6 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1992), vol. 6, p. 169; Muḥammad Nawawī al-Jāwī, al-Tafsīr al-munīr (Cairo: n.p., 1355 AH), p. 417; al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-taʾwīl fī maʿānī al-tanzīl (7 vols. Cairo: Maktabat al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1955), vol. 7, p. 192; al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al-aqāwīl fī wujūh al-taʾwīl (4 vols. Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 1972), vol. 4, p. 197; Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-maʿād fī ʿilm al-tafsīr (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī – Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2002), p. 1499.

3 It has its own light and thus has no need for sun nor moon: al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-taʾwīl, vol. 7, p. 192.

4 Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan tafsīr āy al-Qurʾān (Cairo: n.p., 1968), vol. 29, pp. 213–4; al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa’l-bayān, vol. 10, p. 98; al-Wāḥidī, al-Wasīṭ fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al- majīd (4 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1994), vol. 4, pp. 402–3: ‘al-bard al-shadīd’; al-Māwardī, al-Nukat wa’l-ʿuyūn, vol. 6, p. 169; al-Jāwī, al-Tafsīr al-munīr, p. 417; al-Khāzin, Lubāb al-taʾwīl, vol. 7, p. 192; Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-maʿād, p. 1499; al-Thaʿālibī, al-Jawāhir al-ḥisān (3 vols. Sayda, Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1997), vol. 3, p. 242; Abū’l-Layth al-Samarqandī, Baḥr al-ʿulūm (3 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1993), vol. 3, p. 431: ‘it is the winter cold’; al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr fī’l-tafsīr al-maʾthūr (8 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1983), vol. 8, p. 373; Hūd ibn Muḥakkam, Tafsīr kitāb Allāh al-ʿazīz (4 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1990), vol. 4, p. 449; al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa’l-bayān, vol. 10, pp. 97– 8: ‘it is winter’.

5 Al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, vol. 8, pp. 372–3; al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr, vol. 30, p. 219; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm (4 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1983), vol. 4, p. 715; Hūd ibn Muḥakkam, Tafsīr, vol. 4, p. 449.

6 Muqātil ibn Sulaymān, Tafsīr (4 vols. Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya, 1979–89), vol. 4, p. 527. From Muqātil, also in al-Wāḥidī, al-Wasīṭ, vol. 4, pp. 402–3.

7 Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. 29, p. 214; al-Māwardī, al-Nukat wa’l-ʿuyūn, vol. 6, p. 169; Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm (10 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1999), vol. 10, p. 3391 no. 19083; al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, vol. 8, p. 373; al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa’l-bayān, vol. 10, p. 98.

8 Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān (20 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1967), vol. 19, p. 295.

9 Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām, vol. 10, p. 164.

10 Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām, vol. 19, p. 138, and cf. vol. 19, p. 180, explaining Q. 78:24 where it is said that the damned in Hell will not taste bardan wa-lā shirāban; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. 29, p. 214.

11 See Ibn Qutayba, Tafsīr gharīb al-Qurʾān, Beirut 1978, p. 381, commenting on aya 58, as in Hūd ibn Muḥakkam, Tafsīr Kitāb Allāh, vol. 4, p. 26; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. 23, p. 178; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām, vol. 15, p. 223; al-Tabrisī, Majmaʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr al- Qurʾān (10 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Taʾrīkh al-ʿArabī, 1992), vol. 8, p. 622, from al-Ṭabarī > Ibn ʿAbbās, quoted also in al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, vol. 7, p. 199; al-Samarqandī, Tafsīr, vol. 3, p. 134; al-Māturidī, Taʾwīlāt ahl al-sunna (5 vols. Beirut: Muʾassat al-Risāla, 2004), vol. 4, p. 280; al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa’l-bayān, vol. 8, p. 213; and cf. Ibn Wahb, al- Tafsīr al-musammā al-wāḍiḥ (2 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), vol. 2, p. 233: ‘zamharīr burns them like fire burns them’; Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-masīr, p. 1219; al-Qanūjī al-Bukhārī, Yaqẓat ūlī al-iʿtibār mimmā warada fī dhikr al-nār wa-aṣḥāb al-nār (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2004), p. 66; al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al-baʿth wa’l-nushūr (Beirut: Markaz al-Khadamāt wa’l-Abḥāth al-Thaqāfiyya, 1986), p. 291. In some exegetical literature it is stated that the meaning of the term al-ghassāq is zamharīr, see for instance al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān,

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vol. 30, p. 14, p. 15, as already pointed out by J. Meyer, Die Hölle im Islam (Basel: Unpublished DPhil. thesis, 1901), p. 51. Cf. instead some of the older commentaries which do not mention zamharīr but simply state that it is cold, see Muqātil, Tafsīr, vol. 3, p. 651; al- Farrāʾ, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (Cairo: n.p., n.d.), vol. 2, p. 410.

12 So states Ṣ. El-Ṣaleḥ, La vie future selon le Coran (Paris: Vrin, 1986), p. 51.

13 Ibn Abī Shayba, al-Muṣannaf (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1995), no. 34137 (from CD-Rom al-Maktaba al-alfiyya (Amman, 1999)); ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr (al-Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1989), vol. 2, p. 337; al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, vol. 8, p. 372; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1992), no. 7708, no. 9114, no. 10545; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, vol. 29, p. 214; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām, vol. 19, p. 137; al-Zurqānī, Sharḥ Muwaṭṭaʾ al-imām Mālik (4 vols. Cairo: Muṣtafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1962), vol. 1, p. 60, attributing this version to Muslim; see also Ibn Rajab, al-Takhwīf min al-nār (Beirut: Dār Ibn Zaydūn, n.d.), p. 88: versions with zamharīrihā from the two ṣaḥīḥ; see also al- Suyūṭī, al-Budūr al-sāfira fī umūr al-ākhira (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qurʾān, 1990), p. 324; Ibn Kathīr, Nihāyat al-bidāya wa’l-nihāya, (Cairo al-Maktaba al-Qayyima, 1981), p. 367.

14 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, no. 617 (from CD-Rom al-Maktaba al-alfiyya); al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, no. 512, no. 3087 (from CD-Rom al-Maktaba al-alfiyya). Cf. also the version given by al-Tirmidhī, Jāmiʿ, no. 2592: ‘zamharīr is the breath that Hell breathes in winter, while samūm is that of summer’; from al-Bukhārī in Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muqliq (Tanta: Dār al-Ṣaḥāba li’l-Turāth bi-Ṭanṭā, 1991), p. 81; Ibn Abī’l-Dunyā, Ṣifat al-nār (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 1997), p. 101, no. 154; al-Suyūṭī, al-Budūr al-sāfira, p. 324, going back to al-Bazzār; see also al-Bayhaqī, Kitāb al- baʿth wa’l-nushūr, p. 138.

15 Ibn Abī’l-Dunyā, Ṣifat al-nār, pp. 100–1, no. 152.

16 Ibn Abī’l-Dunyā, Ṣifat al-nār, p. 76, no. 102; Ibn Rajab, al-Takhwīf min al-nār, p. 90.

17 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Nihāya fī gharīb al-āthār (4 vols. Cairo: ʿIsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1966), vol. 2, p. 314, s.v. zamharīr.

18 Ibn Rajab, al-Takhwīf min al-nār, p. 90. See also M. Asin Palacios, La escatologia musulmana en la Divina Comedia (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1919), p. 138, n. 3.

19 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Badāʾiʿ al-fawāʾid, vol. 2, no. 442 (from CD-Rom Maktabat al-shaykh [Ibn Taymiyya] wa-tilmīdhihi (Amman, 1999)).

20 Ibn al-Jawzī, Talbīs Iblīs (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1992), p. 88.

21 Al-Suyūṭī, al-Budūr al-sāfira, pp. 324–5: al-Qurṭubī, al-Tadhkira (Cairo: al-Maktaba al- Tawfīqiyya, n.d.), p. 442; al-Shaʿrānī, Mukhtaṣar tadhkirat al-Qurṭubī (Cairo: Muṣtafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1939), p. 82; al-Qanūjī al-Bukhārī, Yaqẓat ūlī al-iʿtibār, p. 83; Ibn Kathīr, Nihāyat al-bidāya, p. 387, but with a differing version; see also al-Wāsiṭī, Taʾrīkh Jurjān (Beirut: n. p. 1406 AH), no. 978; Ibn Rajab, al-Takhwīf min al-nār, p. 90. See already in Asin Palacios, La escatologia musulmana, p. 139, quoting al-Qurṭubī. A variant is also attested in al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, vol. 8, p. 373, where the answer is given by Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, who states that it is a building (bayt) instead of a pit.

22 Ibn Ḥayyān al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-ʿaẓama (5 vols. Beirut: Dār al-ʿĀṣima, n.d.), vol. 1, pp. 310–1, no. 53; Ibn Rajab, al-Takhwīf min al-nār, p. 91.

23 See ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Aḥmad al-Qāḍī, Daqāʾiq al-akhbār fī dhikr al-janna wa’l-nār, (Beirut: Muṣtafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī 1984), p. 21: ‘the face of the dead is as cold as the zamharīr’. Other reports on this proverbial use are in Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār (110 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Irshād al-Islāmī, 1983), vol. 49, p. 337; vol. 75, p. 31; vol. 75, p. 454 (from CD-Rom Noor 2 (Najaf, 2000)), where a tradition mentions ‘something colder than the zamharīr’; see also Ibn Bābūye, al-Amālī, vol. 1, p. 244 (from CD-Rom Noor 2); Ibn Bābūye, al-Khiṣāl, vol. 2, p. 348 (from CD-Rom Noor 2). And see also Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād, Fitan (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.),

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no. 1657, where the adjective zamharīrī is mentioned; Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Ṣifat al-nār, p. 101, no. 153: ‘it is the unbearable cold’.

24 Ibn Faḍlān, Riḥla (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1992), p. 114.

25 Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, vol. 5, p. 412 (from CD-Rom al-Maktaba al-alfiyya).

26 Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Isrāʾ wa’l-miʿrāj (Cairo: Muṣtafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1946), pp. 17–8; and see also later on, p. 22, where it is said that the zamharīr is the punishment of a category of damned women upon whom hot water (al-ḥamīm) and cold (al-zamharīr) are poured; cf. also Kitāb miʿrāj al-nabī, MS Turin, Biblioteca del Dipartimento di orientalistica (Biblioteca Kahle), no. 179, p. 39. It is to be noted that in other versions of this story, mention is not made of the term zamharīr, see e.g. Ibn al-ʿAbbāsī (sic), al-Isrāʾ wa’l-miʿrāj (Cairo: Dār Shaqrūn, 2002); al-Ghayṭī, Qiṣṣat al-miʿrāj and Aḥmad al-Dardīr, Ḥāshīya ʿalā qiṣṣat al-miʿrāj, published together (Cairo: Muṣtafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1949). Neither is zamharīr mentioned in the long tradition on miʿrāj in al-Suyūṭī, al-Laʾālī al-maṣnūʿa fī’l-aḥādīth al-maṣnūʿa (2 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), vol. 1, pp. 62–74, already mentioned by Asin Palacios.

27 See R. Tottoli, ‘The Story of Jesus and the Skull in Arabic Literature: The Emergence and Growth of a Religious Tradition’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 28 (2003), pp. 225–59, p. 248, quoting Ms Kobenhaven, Kongelige Bibl. No. 234, f. 34a. See also Meyer, Die Hölle im Islam, p. 30. According to another version of this story it is stated that one of the doors of Hell leads to a place where prostitutes are punished through the punishment of zamharīr.

28 Al-Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ (Cairo: Muṣtafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1958), p. 7, here in the translation of W.M. Brinner, ʿArāʿis al-Majālis fī Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ or ‘Lives of the Prophets’ as Recounted by Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Thaʿlabī, ed. W.M. Brinner (Leiden, Boston, Köln: E.J. Brill, 2002), p. 13. The term is mentioned in a similar vein in the Arabian Nights; see R. Burton, A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments (London: n.p., 1885), vol. 4, tale 43.

29 See Palacios, La escatologia musulmana, pp. 138–9 quoting two passages from the Futūḥāt al-makkiyya.

30 Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ al-bārī (20 vols. Cairo: Muṣtafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1955), vol. 2, p. 19; see also further discussions of these variants in Ibn ʿAbd al-Bārr, Tamhīd, vol. 5, p. 8 (from CD- Rom al-Maktaba al-alfiyya).

31 Al-Zurqānī, Sharḥ Muwaṭṭaʾ, vol. 1, p. 60.

32 But see above the discussion of his commentary, since he is the mufassir who makes the most frequent reference to it as punishment of Hell.

33 Al-Suyūṭī, al-Budūr al-sāfira, p. 321.

34 The Remembrance of Death and Afterlife. Kitāb dhikr al-mawt wa-mā baʿdahu. Book XL of The Revival of the Relgious Sciences (Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn), ed. and tr. T.J. Winter (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1989), p. 224.

35 Ibn Rajab, al-Takhwīf min al-nār, p. 88, p. 90.

36 Asin Palacios, La escatologia musulmana, pp. 137–9. Asin Palacios mentioned some of the most relevant traditions on the subject and connected the belief to the Qur’anic passage mentioning the word. It is most interesting that Asin Palacios starts from the fact that the punishment of cold is attested in Dante’s Commedia (Inferno, XXXII, 22–124, XXXIV, 10ff.) and points out that this kind of punishment is not attested in Jewish and Christian traditions. The presence of cold punishments in the Islamic Hell had already been mentioned by J. Meyer in his dissertation on Hell in Islam (see Die Hölle im Islam, pp. 36–7).

37 According to Asin Palacios, La escatologia musulmana, pp. 138–9, the origin of the belief in Islam is Zoroastrian. He makes reference here to a statement by al-Jāḥiẓ, according to whom

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people of the kalām maintain that Zarathustra preached this because – along with the sacredness of the fire – his followers were mountain people and the punishment of exposure to cold made more sense to them than exposure to heat (as preached by Muḥammad to people of the desert). See al-Jāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-ḥayawān, ed. Hārūn (8 vols. Cairo: Muṣtafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1966), vol. 5, p. 67. It is interesting to note that while a punishment of cold, as far as I know, is not attested in Jewish and Christian tradition, it is in fact mentioned in Zoroastrian literature and, further east, above all in Buddhist traditions. Along with the references given by Asin Palacios, see G. Verardi, ‘Gli inferni buddhisti’ (unpublished paper to appear in a forthcoming collective work), where it is stated that in Buddhist traditions cold hells are on the same level as hot ones, since there are ten cold hells. For references to Zoroastrian cold hell punishments, see L.H. Gray, ‘Zoroastrian Elements in Muhammedan Eschatology’, Le Muséon 21 (1902), pp. 153–84, p. 174.

DOI: 10.3366/E1465359109000291

152 Journal of Qur’anic Studies