Commentary
Al-salsal: the dry clay that makes a sound when struck, and it is uncooked. When it is cooked, it becomes pottery. They said: if you perceive in its sound a length, it is silil, and if you perceive in it an echo, it is salsalah. It is said: it is the intensification of 'sal' when it becomes foul. Al-hama: the black clay that has changed. Al-masnun: the formed one, from the form of the face. It is said: it is the poured out, meaning: it has been poured into the shape of a human as images are poured from melted jewels into their molds. It is said: it is foul, from sunna al-hajar 'on the stone' if you rub it with it, so that which flows between them is sunin, and it can only be foul from hama, a description of salsal, meaning: He created it from salsal that is from hama and a right masnun meaning formed, to be a description of salsal, as if He poured the hama and shaped from it a hollow human statue, and it dried until when struck it makes a sound, then He changed it after that to another essence. And al-jann is for the jinn as Adam is for mankind. It is said: it is Iblis. Al-Hasan and Amr ibn Ubayd read: al-jan, with a hamzah from the fire of the scorching wind, from the fire of intense heat that penetrates the pores. It is said: this scorching wind is one part of seventy parts of the scorching fire from which Allah created the jinn.
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