al-Kahf 18:99-102

"On that day We shall leave them surging against one another; the trumpet is blown and We gather them all together… They are those whose eyes were under a veil against remembering Me, and who could not bear to hear."

يَمُوجُ فِى بَعْضٍ — root م-و-ج: to surge, to move in waves. The word pictures the movement of the crowd like a wave of the sea.

And in al-Kahf at 18/97-98 the barrier of Dhū'l-Qarnayn was recounted; the ninety-eighth verse said fa-idhā jāʾa waʿdu rabbī jaʿalahu dakkā. The ninety-ninth verse describes the state in which that promise is fulfilled. The two verses stand one after the other and are bound to each other.

غِطَآء — a veil, a covering.

The word was treated in Qāf at 50/22 (fa-kashafnā ʿanka ghiṭāʾaka fa-baṣaruka'l-yawma ḥadīd) and it was recorded there: "what changes is not you but the veil." I rely on that treatment.

The two verses may be compared:

One recounts the outcome, the other the cause. I record this as an observation.

وَكَانُوا۟ لَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ سَمْعًا — "they could not bear to hear."

And the eleventh verse of the sūra must be recalled: fa-ḍarabnā ʿalā ādhānihim fi'l-kahfi sinīna ʿadadā — there the veil struck upon the ear was a protection.

The same organ, in two opposite functions. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra.

أَفَحَسِبَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوٓا۟ أَن يَتَّخِذُوا۟ عِبَادِى مِن دُونِىٓ أَوْلِيَآءَ (102) — and the verb ḥasiba occurs here for the third time in the sūra (9, 18, 102). The "supposing" axis of the sūra is gathered in the looking-back table.