It may be that such a punishment has been prescribed since...

It may be that such a punishment has been prescribed since when a person is thrown into the hell fire due to the sins he has committed, he will be thrown into the fire by that thing which led him to commit the sins. Since it is the tongue by which he committed sins, thus, he will be thrown into the hell fire face first.

Thus, the first thing to be burnt by the fire is his tongue - and it is this same tongue that lit the fires (of hatred and sin in the world) and it is this organ through which one (innocently) accused people and annoyed others. Thus, every morning when we wake up from our sleep, we must ask Allah (SwT) to protect us from the evils of the tongue.

In addition, when we are ready to go to bed to sleep at night, we must ask forgiveness from Allah (SwT) for the sins which we committed in the day and definitely the tongue of a person puts one into a great difficulty.[^4] ! [^1]: Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 74, pg. 187 [^2]: The tongue is the most important instrument for communication between people and for the conveyance of information and data from one nation and generation to another.

If this instrument of communication did not exist, then humanity would never have been able to reach the levels which they have arrived at today, nor would they have been able to progress to the great levels of knowledge, intelligence, material gains and spiritual greatness which they are currently in. The tongue itself is an amazing part of the body of mankind which also carries a very heavy responsibility with it.

In addition to helping and assisting a person in swallowing his food, it also plays an important role in the chewing of food. Continuously while one is eating morsels of food, the teeth are hammering down and pushing the food around the mouth and this act is so skillfully performed that the tongue is saved and protected from being crushed by the teeth, whereas we see that it is continuously alongside and flanking the teeth!

Sometime - very rarely - it can be seen that when chewing food, the tongue too gets bitten by the teeth and at this time we scream out in pain! Thus if the tongue did not possess the dexterity that it has, one can just imagine what would have happened to it! In addition, after one has finished eating food, the tongue actually rubs and wipes the teeth clean of any remaining food which happens to be on them.