وَأَنَّا كُنَّا نَقۡعُدُ مِنۡهَا مَقَٰعِدَ لِلسَّمۡعِ ۖ فَمَن يَسۡتَمِعِ ٱلۡـَٔانَ يَجِدۡ لَهُۥ شِهَابًا رَّصَدًا
And we used to sit therein in positions for hearing, but whoever listens now will find a burning flame lying in wait for him.
The jinn explain their previous strategy:
وَأَنَّا كُنَّا نَقۡعُدُ مِنۡهَا مَقَٰعِدَ لِلسَّمۡعِ
And we used to sit therein in positions for hearing.
They couldn’t access the most secured areas, but they had discovered hiding spots at a distance from which they could potentially overhear fragments of angelic conversations.
These positions allowed them to steal bits of information from angels descending to earth with Allah’s commands.
The jinn would catch these incomplete pieces of information and bring them to fortune tellers, psychics, and mystics.
The fortune teller would receive this half-baked supernatural knowledge and fill in the rest with guesswork of their own making—this became the foundation of their deceptive business.
However, everything changed during the revelation of the Qur’an:
فَمَن يَسۡتَمِعِ ٱلۡـَٔانَ يَجِدۡ لَهُۥ شِهَابًا رَّصَدًا
But whoever listens now will find a burning flame lying in wait for him.
Whoever tries to listen now will find a meteor specifically targeting him. The word رَصَدًا implies something lying in wait, watching, ready to strike. Even their old hiding spots became completely inaccessible.
The security wasn’t just increased—it became personal.
Rather than warning shots, specific targeting began. If a jinn tried to approach, a flame would lock onto him specifically and pursue him like a heat-seeking missile until it struck.
The jinn realized something unprecedented was happening: classified information of the highest importance must be coming from the heavens to earth, and they had absolutely no access to it.