This ayah presents a severe image: a frantic, excessive drinking likened to camels afflicted with a pathological thirst. The Arabic term الْهِيمِ evokes dryness, barrenness, confusion, severity, and a thirst so intense that drinking itself becomes part of the suffering rather than its cure.
The ayah presents an image of afflicted camels driven by an extreme and disordered thirst. They gulp water greedily and continuously, but do not become satisfied. Instead, the drinking intensifies their condition. In the same way, the people described here drink in desperation, yet their drink is not relief—it is an increase in torment.
The comparison does not merely indicate “a lot of drinking.” It conveys a state of inner affliction: urgency, loss of restraint, and bodily distress. The image is not ordinary thirst; it is thirst tied to disease, compulsion, and destruction.
Refers, among types of sand, to fine, powdery, dry sand. It also refers to dirt or sand that cannot hold itself together and slips through the hand because of its suppleness. This introduces a texture of dryness, looseness, and instability.
A barren expanse or desert with no water. This contributes the image of emptiness, exposure, and deprivation.
Used for one who suffers severe thirst or is afflicted by a disease that makes him extremely thirsty.
Severe thirst, or a disease afflicting camels that drives them to keep drinking until they die. They greedily gulp water and are never satiated.
A night with no stars. This adds a shade of disorientation and absence of guidance.
One who is baffled and confused, not knowing where he is heading. It is also often associated with being “crazy” in love. This carries the sense of a condition so overpowering that it deranges balance and clarity.
Camels afflicted by severe, unquenchable thirst. The word evokes a vivid scene: animals driven by pathological thirst to drink frantically and without restraint, yet the water does not quench them and only worsens their condition.
Ibn ‘Abbas, Mujahid, ‘Ikrimah and Ad-Dahhak said: هِيم is the plural of أَهْيَمُ and it refers to the camel afflicted by Al-Huyaam, an affliction resembling abnormal fluid retention, with the symptom of unquenchable thirst, whereby they drink until they die.
The ayah portrays an abnormal and destructive kind of drinking, where the urge to drink does not heal but pushes the afflicted further toward ruin.
Camels absorb water from the gut into the bloodstream much faster than most mammals. On that basis, the image suggests suffering that is not localized, but felt throughout the body. The comparison therefore carries a sense of full-bodied pain rather than simple thirst alone.
The force of the image is inverted from what one expects of water. Ordinarily, drink cools, soothes, and restores. Here, the act of drinking becomes the vehicle through which pain and distress intensify.
The ayah evokes camels in a barren desert, overwhelmed by an insatiable thirst. This is a scene of dryness, exposure, depletion, and helpless craving.
In stark contrast, Jannah is lush with greenery and vegetation, and with an endless supply of drinks that bring pleasure, not the quenching of thirst, for no thirst exists there. The contrast heightens the severity of the present image.
The ayah’s wording points to a diseased and uncontrollable thirst, not a normal need for water.
The drinking described is greedy, frenzied, and without restraint—yet without benefit.
Dry sand, barren desert, starless night, confusion, and derangement all enrich the force of الْهِيمِ.
The expected effect of drinking—quenching and comfort—is reversed into ongoing suffering.
The afflicted continue drinking out of need and desperation, but the very act deepens the harm.
The barren desperation of this image stands against the lush ease and pleasurable drinks mentioned in contrast.