earn.”

Abū ‘Ubaydah said: “It overwhelmed them. Wine overwhelms a drunkard’s reason, and death overwhelms a person and carries him off.” This usage also appears in the account of Usayfi‘ of Juhaynah and in ‘Umar’s words: “He has thus been overwhelmed”—that is, he was overcome and engulfed.

Abū Mu‘ādh the grammarian said: “Rayn is the heart’s blackening through sins. Sealing means that the heart is sealed, and this is more severe than rayn. Locking is more severe than sealing: it means that the heart is locked.”

Al-Farrā’ said: “Their sins and acts of disobedience multiplied until they enveloped their hearts. That is the rayn upon them.”

Abū Ishāq said: “Rāna means ‘covered.’ One says, ‘Sin covered his heart’—rāna, yarīnu, raynan—meaning that it enveloped it.” He said: “Rayn is like a covering that envelops the heart. The same applies to ‘ayn.”

I say: Abū Ishāq is mistaken. Ghayn (clouding) is the lightest and thinnest of coverings. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“A clouding does come over my heart, and I seek Allah’s forgiveness a hundred times a day.”

Rayn and rān, by contrast, are among the thickest and densest veils over the heart. Mujāhid said: “It is sin upon sin, until sins surround and envelop the heart, causing it to die.”

Muqātil said: “Their evil deeds submerged their hearts.”

In the Sunan collections of al-Nasā’ī and al-Tirmidhī, Abū Hurayrah reports that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“When a servant commits a sin, a black spot is marked on his heart. If he desists, seeks forgiveness, and repents, his heart is polished clean. But if he continues to sin, it grows until it covers his heart. This is the rust Allah mentioned: ‘No! Rather, their hearts have been covered with rust by what they used to earn.’”

Al-Tirmidhī said: “This is an authentic hadith.”

‘Abd Allāh ibn Mas‘ūd said: “Whenever he sins, a black spot is marked on his heart, until the entire heart becomes black.”

Thus, Allah, glorified is He, states that the sins they earned brought rust upon their hearts. The cause of that rust therefore came from them, while it was Allah who created it within them. He is the Creator of the cause