La yassammaAAoona ila almalai alaAAla wayuqthafoona min kulli janibin
English
Ahmed Ali
So that they are not able to listen to the angels of higher (echelons), and are pelted from all sides
8
Tafseer
'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī
تفسير : (they cannot listen) so that they do not listen (to the highest chiefs) to the speech of the angels, i.e. the guardian angels, regarding that which is communicated amongst them (for they are pelted from every side) they rise up to,
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī
تفسير : they, namely, the devils (lā yasma‘ūna, this is [the beginning of] a new sentence) cannot listen in — this ‘listening’ of theirs represents that faculty with which they memorise [what they hear] — on the high council, the angels in the heavens (the [normally transitive verb] al-samā‘ is complemented with the preposition ilā, ‘to’ [here ‘in on’] because it includes the additional sense of ‘paying attention’ [while listening]; a variant reading has yassamma‘una, which is actually yatasamma‘ūna, the tā’ have been assimilated with the sīn), for they, the devils, are pelted, with flames, from every side, from the remotest regions of the heavens,
