and he said: Those who held this view cited this verse as evidence. Two answers have been given to them.

One is the answer offered by a group that includes al-Zajjāj. They said that this refers to a particular fire. Yet His subsequent words,

“But the most God-fearing will be kept far from it,”

would then offer little promise, since someone spared that fire could still be made to enter another.

Others answered that they will not burn in it eternally. This is closer to the truth. More precisely, burning here means burning in the full, unqualified sense: remaining in it forever, continually subject to its torment. As for someone who enters and then leaves, this is a kind of burning, but not burning in that full sense—especially if he has died therein and the Fire has not consumed him entirely. For it is established that it does not consume the parts of the body that touch the ground in prostration. And Allah knows best.

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Allah, glorified be He, mentions Abraham and Moses together—may Allah bless them both and all the other messengers—in a number of contexts, as in His words:

“Indeed, this is in the earlier scriptures—the scriptures of Abraham and Moses.”