Commentary
In verses 71 and 72, it was said: يُسْحَبُونَ فِي الْحَمِيمِ ثُمَّ فِي النَّارِ يُسْجَرُونَ (They will be dragged [ 71] into the hot water after which they will be thrown in the Fire as a fuel.). The word: الْحَمِيمِ (al-hameem) is boiling hot water. The verse seems to suggest that the people of Jahannam will first be put into the hameem, then, into the jahim, that is, the Jahannam. Again, it also seems to suggest that the hameem is somewhere outside the Jahannam. The verse: ثُمَّ إِنَّ مَرْجِعَهُمْ لَإِلَى الْجَحِيمِ (Then, their return is but to the Fire - As-Saffat, 37:68) also appears to be suggesting that the hameem is located somewhere outside the Jahannam. The people of Jahannam will be brought here to drink its water, and will then be returned to Jahannam. Then there are some verses of the Qur'an that suggest that the hameem too is within the jahim or Jahannam as in: هَـٰذِهِ جَهَنَّمُ الَّتِي يُكَذِّبُ بِهَا الْمُجْرِمُونَ يَطُوفُونَ بَيْنَهَا وَبَيْنَ حَمِيمٍ آنٍ (This is the Jahannam (Hell) that the guilty people deny. They
will circle around between it and between hot, boiling water - Ar-Rahmn, 55:43-44). Here too, it is explicitly said that the hameem is also within the Jahannam.
A little deliberation shows that there is no contradiction between these two things. There will be many strata or sections of Jahannam itself serving as venues of many kinds of punishment. One of these could be that of hameem which could as well be called as being outside the Jahannam because of its separate and distinct location, and since this is also a section of Jahannam itself, therefore, it could also be called the Jahannam. Ibn Kathir has said that the people of Jahannam, shackled in chains, will sometime be dragged into the hameem and at others, in Jahannam.