after stating the law of inheritance, it is said: “These are Allāh’s limits; and … whoever disobeys Allāh and His Messenger and goes beyond His limits, He will make him enter fire, to abide in it (khālidan), and for him is an abasing chastisement” (4:13, 14). Here clearly Muslim sinners are spoken of, and yet their abiding in Hell is expressed by the word khulūd.
Take the other word abad. This word occurs thrice in the Holy Qur’ān, in connection with the abiding of sinners in Hell. Ordinarily, it is taken as meaning for ever or eternally, but that it sometimes signifies only a long time, is abundantly clear from the fact that both its dual and plural forms are in use. Rāghib says that this is owing to the fact that the word is, in that case, used to express a part of time. And explaining its verb form ta’abbada, he says it signifies the thing existed for abad, and is taken to mean what remains for a long time. Thus a long time, as the significance of abad, is fully recognized in Arabic lexicology. That in the case of those in Hell, it signifies a long time and not for ever, is clear from the fact that the abiding in Hell of even the unbelievers is elsewhere stated to be for aḥqāb, which is the plural of ḥuqbah, meaning a year or many years (LA.)., or eighty years (R.). At all events it indicates a definite period of time, and hence serves as a clear indication that even abad, in the case of abiding in Hell, means a long time.
The two words khulūd and abad, which are generally construed as leading to an eternity of Hell, being thus disposed of, the verses which are generally adduced in support of the idea that those in Hell shall for ever and ever suffer its endless tortures may be considered: “Thus will Allāh show them their deeds to be intense regret to them, and they will not escape from the Fire” (2:167). “Those who disbelieve, even if they had all that is in the earth, and the like of it with it, to ransom themselves with it from the chastisement of the Day of Resurrection, it would not be accepted from them and theirs is a painful chastisement. They would desire to come forth from the fire, and they will not come forth from it, and theirs is a lasting chastisement” (5:36, 37). “Whenever they desire to go forth from it, from grief, they are turned back into it” (22:22). “And as for those who transgress, their refuge is the Fire. Whenever they desire to go forth from it they are brought back into it, and it is said to them, Taste the