If it is asked: How can He describe them as blind, dumb, and deaf when He says, “The wicked will see the Fire” (al-Kahf 53), “There they will call out for destruction” (al-Furqan 13), and, “They will hear it raging and roaring” (al-Furqan 12)—thus affirming sight, speech, and hearing for them?

It is said: They will be gathered in the state Allah has described, then these faculties will be restored to them.

Another answer is that Ibn Abbas said: “Blind”—unable to see anything that would please them; “dumb”—unable to utter any argument; and “deaf”—unable to hear anything that would please them.

Al-Hasan said: This will be their condition as they are driven to the place of standing, until they enter the Fire.

Muqatil said: This will be when they are told, “Be driven away into it in humiliation, and do not speak to Me” (al-Muminun 108). Then, all of them will become blind, dumb, and deaf: they will neither see, speak, nor hear.

“Their abode will be Hell. Whenever it subsides”—Ibn Abbas said: whenever it becomes still, that is, whenever its flames abate. Mujahid said: whenever it is extinguished. Qatadah said: whenever it weakens. It was also said that this refers to a calming without any reduction in the suffering of the disbelievers, for Allah Most High says, “Its punishment will not be lightened for them” (al-Zukhruf 75). It was also said that “whenever it subsides” means whenever it is about to subside—“We shall increase for them the blaze,” that is, its fuel.

It was also said that what is meant by His saying, “Whenever it subsides,” is that whenever their skins are fully cooked and burned, they will be restored therein to their former state, and the blaze of the Fire will be increased so that it may burn them.

“That is their recompense, because they disbelieved in Our signs and said, ‘When we have become bones and dust, shall we truly be raised up as a new creation?’ Do they not see that Allah, who created the heavens and the earth, is able to create the like of them? And He has appointed for them a term about which there is no doubt. Yet the wrongdoers persist in nothing but disbelief.” (98–99)

“That is their recompense, because they disbelieved in Our signs and said, ‘When we have become bones and dust, shall we truly be raised up as a new creation?’” Allah Most High answered them, saying: “Do they not see that Allah, who created the heavens and the earth?” “Do they not see that Allah, who created the heavens and the earth”—despite their vastness and strength—“is able to create the like of them,” despite their smallness and weakness. Similar to this is His saying: “Surely the creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of mankind” (Ghafir 57).

“And He has appointed for them a term,” that is, a time for their punishment, “about which there is no doubt”—that it will come to them. It was said that this is death, and it was also said that it is the Day of Resurrection. “Yet the wrongdoers persist in nothing but disbelief,” that is, denial and stubbornness.