and in another wording: “He will run from it, while it follows him; he keeps shielding himself from it until it forces his hand into his mouth, after which it coils itself around his neck.” He then recited this verse.⦗1⦘ A similar report is transmitted from Ibn Masʿūd with a marfūʿ chain.⦗2⦘

Al-Aʿmash narrated from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Murrah, from Masrūq, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd—regarding Allah’s words, “Those who disbelieved and barred others from the path of Allah: We shall heap punishment upon punishment upon them because of the corruption they used to spread” (al-Naḥl 16:88)—that he said: “They will be given scorpions whose tails are like tall palm-trunks.”

Al-Bayhaqī related, through al-Ḥākim, al-Aṣamm, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, Aṣbagh ibn al-Faraj, and Ibn Wahb, from ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith, that Darrāj Abū al-Samḥ reported hearing ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Jazʾ al-Zubaydī relate from the Prophet ﷺ:

“Inside the Fire there are serpents with necks like the necks of Bukht camels; when they bite, the victim feels the heat of the bite for forty years. And within it are scorpions like heavily-laden mules;⦗3⦘ when they sting, the victim feels the burning pain for forty years.”⦗4⦘

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā said: Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Ḥanẓalī narrated to us, saying that Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān Abū al-Jamahir narrated to them, from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh, from Saʿīd ibn Yūsuf, from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from Abū Sallām, who said that al-Ḥajjāj ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Thamālī—who had seen the Prophet ﷺ and performed the Farewell Pilgrimage with him—related to him that Nufayr ibn Mujīb, one of the early Companions of the Prophet ﷺ, said:

“In Jahannam there are seventy thousand valleys; in every valley are seventy thousand gorges; in every gorge are seventy thousand dwellings; in every dwelling are seventy thousand houses; in every house are seventy thousand clefts; and in every cleft are seventy thousand serpents. In the maw of each serpent are seventy thousand scorpions. The unbeliever and hypocrite will not conclude his passage until he has encountered them all.”

This report is mawqūf and exceedingly rare—indeed, severely munkar. Saʿīd ibn Yūsuf, from whom Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh narrates it, is unknown. Allah knows best. Even supposing that Ismāʿīl actually heard it from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr—who was a Ḥijāzī—Ismāʿīl’s narrations from non-Syrians are deemed unreliable. Al-Bukhārī mentioned this tradition in al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr with wording similar to that found here—Allah knows best.⦗5⦘

Some exegetes have said that Ghayy and Athām are valleys within Jahannam—may Allah protect us from it. Others, commenting on His saying, “We placed between them a barrier of destruction” (al-Kahf 18:52), said that it is a river of pus and blood.