سَرَابِيلُهُم مِّن قَطِرَانٍ وَتَغْشَىٰ وُجُوهَهُمُ ٱلنَّارُ
Saraabeeluhum min qatiraaninw wa taghshaa wujoohahumun Naar
in garments of pitch, faces covered in fire.
their garments of pitch, and the fire engulfing their faces.
Qaṭirān was familiar to the first hearers as the black pitch boiled from certain trees and smeared on camels with mange, sticky, foul-smelling and quick to catch fire. Clothing is what a person puts on for cover and dignity, and here it is made of the substance most ready to burn. An early variant reading divided the word in two, giving molten copper at its hottest, and commentators recorded it beside the standard text.