Muḥammad 47:15

Mathalu'l-jannati'llatī wuʿida'l-muttaqūn; fīhā anhārun min māʾin ghayri āsin, wa anhārun min labanin lam yataghayyar ṭaʿmuh, wa anhārun min khamrin ladhdhatin li'sh-shāribīn, wa anhārun min ʿasalin muṣaffā; wa lahum fīhā min kulli'th-thamarāti wa maghfiratun min rabbihim — ka-man huwa khālidun fi'n-nāri wa suqū māʾan ḥamīman fa-qaṭṭaʿa amʿāʾahum

"The likeness of the garden promised to those who guard themselves is this: in it are rivers of water that does not go stale, rivers of milk whose taste does not change, rivers of wine, a delight to those who drink, and rivers of strained honey. There they have every kind of fruit, and a forgiveness from their Lord. [Is such a one] like one who abides for ever in the fire and is given boiling water to drink, so that it tears his bowels apart?"

A note on method, at the very start: the debate over whether the descriptions of the garden are literal or figurative was treated in full in the section al-Wāqiʿa — including the question of the addressee, the table of the two views, and the making of no preference. In the same section the word حَمِيم was also analysed (together with its references to al-Ḥāqqa and al-Maʿārij).

I do not repeat that debate here and I rely on that treatment. What is to be done here is to take up what is particular to this verse: the order among the four rivers, and the opposition at the end of the verse.

The verse is disputed grammatically, and the reason for the dispute must be seen.

Word for word: "The likeness of the garden… is it like one who abides for ever in the fire?"

As it stands this is inconsistent: a likeness cannot be compared to a person. The two sides of the comparison are not of the same kind.

The grammarians and the exegetes resolve this in several ways:

The first resolution is the most widely transmitted, and there is a reason for it: the preceding verse (14) was built with exactly this pattern — a-fa-man kāna ʿalā bayyinatin min rabbihī ka-man zuyyina lahu sūʾu ʿamalihī.

That is, verse 14 set up the a-fa-man… ka-man pattern; verse 15 repeats the same pattern and lengthens its first half by inserting the description of the garden.

This shows that the two verses are a pair:

And note: the first side of both verses ends with the construct مِّن رَّبِّهِ. In 14, bayyinatin min rabbihī; in 15, maghfiratun min rabbihim.

I record this repetition as an observation about word order. The two verses are sealed with the same construct.

And a reminder: the same construct was present in verses 2 and 3 of the sūra as well (wa huwa'l-ḥaqqu min rabbihim; ittabaʿu'l-ḥaqqa min rabbihim). That is, the sūra uses this construct four times: 2, 3, 14, 15.

Four rivers are counted, and all four come in the same pattern: أَنْهَٰرٌ مِّن + [drink] + [quality].

And what the table shows is this: all four qualities remove that drink's defect in this world.

• Water goes foul when it stands still; its colour and taste spoil. → This water does not go stale.
• Milk turns sour when it is kept. → The taste of this milk does not change.
• Wine in this world means drunkenness and a headache. → This is delight only.
• Honey, when it comes out of the comb, is mixed with wax, bee residue and sediment; it has to be strained. → This honey is already strained.

That is, the description is not an enrichment resting on imagination; it is the removal of four known defects from four known things.

And this method was recorded in the section al-Wāqiʿa as well — there 56/32-33 (lā maqṭūʿatin wa lā mamnūʿa — fruit neither cut off nor forbidden) and 56/19 (lā yuṣaddaʿūna ʿanhā wa lā yunzifūn) were analysed in the same way: the description works by removing subtractions.

The observation to be added here is this — and it is my own reading: this method is perhaps the only honest way of recounting something the addressee does not know. The picture of an unknown thing cannot be drawn; but the defect of a known thing can be removed. The text does not describe a new substance to the addressee; it takes a known defect out of a known substance.

How far this method is literal and how far figurative was — as recorded above — debated in al-Wāqiʿa, and there too no preference was made.

Root: أ-س-ن. And this word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

The sense the lexicographers record: water's standing for a long time and its colour, taste or smell spoiling. Asina'l-māʾ / asana'l-māʾ — the water spoiled, went foul.

Two readings are transmitted: ءَاسِن (āsin — an active participle, on the fāʿil pattern) and أَسِن (asin — an adjective on the faʿil pattern). There is no difference of meaning; I content myself with recording it.

And the concrete picture of the root matters: water spoils because it does not flow. The cause of the spoiling is not contamination but stillness.

This makes the word's place in this sentence meaningful. The sentence says أَنْهَٰر (rivers) — that is, it is already speaking of flowing water. And to flowing water it adds the quality "not gone stale".

An observation — it is my own reading: in this world flowing water can spoil too; a river stops, becomes a pond, goes foul. The quality guarantees the continuity of the flow.

I present this as an inference; the verse does not speak of the continuity of the flow, it speaks of the absence of spoiling.

The root غ-ي-ر: to alter, to change. تَغَيَّرَ — Form V: to change of itself, to pass into another state.

And the quality is placed on the taste of the milk: طَعْمُهُ.

This is a choice. When milk spoils many things about it change: its colour, its smell, its consistency. The verse selects taste from among these — that is, the property the drinker meets directly.

And the distribution of the qualities of the four rivers across the senses is worth noting:

All four are qualities measured by the senses. None of them is abstract.

خَمْر — root خ-م-ر: to cover, to conceal. From the same root خِمَار (khimār) — a covering. And wine bears this name because it covers the mind.

That is, the word itself carries in its name the defect of wine in this world.

And after using this word the verse adds a quality to it: لَّذَّةٍ لِّلشَّٰرِبِينَ.

لَذَّة is a verbal noun ("delight"), not an adjective. To bring a verbal noun in the position of an adjective announces intensification in Arabic: not "giving delight" but "delight itself".

And the qualification li'sh-shāribīn must not be passed over either: "for those who drink". That is, the delight is described not as something in the drink itself but as something that is for the one who drinks.

A note on method is required here. This verse uses in a description of the garden the name of a drink forbidden in this world, and this is not a new question; the Qurʾān itself makes the distinction explicitly elsewhere:

"…from which they get neither headache nor loss of their wits" (al-Wāqiʿa 56/19 — treated in al-Wāqiʿa). "White, a delight to those who drink… in it there is no stupefying, nor do they become drunk on it" (al-Ṣāffāt 37/46-47).

That is, in using the word the Qurʾān removes the word's this-worldly defects separately each time. What is shared is the name; what is not shared is the effect the name points to.

No legal conclusion is drawn from this in this commentary, and nothing is said about the ruling in this world.

مُّصَفًّى — root ص-ف-و, the passive participle of Form tafʿīl: strained, purified, separated from its sediment.

From the same root: صَفَا — it became clear; صَفْوَة — the essence, the choicest part of a thing; ٱصْطَفَى — he chose, he sifted out (in the Qurʾān it is used of the choosing of the prophets); and ٱلصَّفَا — the hill of al-Ṣafā.

And the lexicographers record the word ṣafwān too: a smooth, polished stone. In al-Baqara this word was treated in the exegesis of 2/264 (the slippery rock with a fine layer of soil on it).

The work of the word in this verse is concrete: in this world honey is not pure as it comes out of the comb. Straining is a work done by a person. The verse says that the work has been done.

An observation — it is my own reading: three of the four qualities are the absence of a spoiling (water, milk, wine); the fourth is a process having been carried out (honey). That is, in three of them a subtraction is removed, and in the fourth something is presented as already worked upon.

After the four rivers two more things are counted:

1. مِن كُلِّ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ — of every kind of fruit. 2. وَمَغْفِرَةٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ — and a forgiveness from their Lord.

And this second is the only abstract item on the list.

Everything counted is drunk or eaten: water, milk, wine, honey, fruit. And the last is forgiveness — which is neither drunk nor eaten.

This is worth noting in respect of its being placed at the end of the list. In the classical commentaries it is pointed out that this addition shifts the centre of gravity of the description: on top of all the favours counted, something of another kind is added.

مَغْفِرَة — root غ-ف-ر: to cover, to cover over. And as was recorded in al-Ṣaff, the concrete source of the root is the mighfar — the war helmet that covers the head:

"That is, forgiveness is not the treating of a sin as non-existent but the covering of it."

And here three roots stand side by side, all three having to do with "covering":

Two roots of covering in the same verse, three in the same sūra. I record this as a lexical observation; it carries no claim of deliberateness.

And after the four rivers the verse passes to a single drink.

How the opposition is built needs to be seen in a table:

And two details of word order sharpen this table:

One. On the side of the garden there is no verb, there is existence. Fīhā anhārun — "in it are rivers". A nominal sentence; it announces fixity. No one is giving anything to anyone; it is there.

Two. On the side of the fire there is a verb, and it is passive: سُقُوا۟ — "they were given to drink". That is, they do not drink; they are made to drink. Will is not present in the sentence.

I record this opposition as my own reading; the structural difference between the two clauses is textual data, the "will" reading I draw from it is my own inference.

Root: ح-م-م. This root was analysed in full in al-Ḥāqqa (69/35); it was recorded again in al-Maʿārij and al-Wāqiʿa. I do not repeat it here.

The summary recorded there: the root has two branches of meaning — boiling water and close friend — and the lexicographers join them by way of "heat".

The only thing to be added here is the object of the word in this verse. The verse does not say ḥamīm alone; it says مَآءً حَمِيمًا — "boiling water".

And this comes into direct confrontation with the first of the four rivers:

The same word (māʾ), with two qualities, at the two ends of the same verse.

This is the sharpest opposition in the word order of the verse and it is hard to think it accidental: the verse counts four drinks, and on the other side it places the same substance as the first of those four.

I record this as an observation about word order.

قَطَّعَ — root ق-ط-ع: to cut. And the form here is Form tafʿīl.

Form tafʿīl, besides transitivity, announces multiplicity (takthīr: abundance, repetition, extension). That is, qaṭṭaʿa does not mean "he cut"; it means "he cut to pieces, he cut again and again".

The difference lies in the pattern itself: qaṭaʿa is a single cutting, qaṭṭaʿa a plural one.

أَمْعَآء — the plural of miʿā: bowels. The word occurs only here in the Qurʾān.

And the work of the choice is this: the verse does not speak of an outward punishment. What is spoken of is something that goes inside. The drink does its work where it has gone.

And this sets up an exact symmetry with the first half of the verse — it is my own reading:

The four rivers are also things to be drunk; that is, they too go inside. The verse counts, on both sides, things that go inside. The difference lies in what they do once they have gone in: one nourishes, one tears apart.

I present this symmetry as a reading; the verse does not build such a sentence of comparison, but that both sides are described by way of drinks stands in the text.

What was written on this subject in the section al-Wāqiʿa holds here too and I do not repeat it. It was taken up there under three headings: the question of the addressee (what water, shade and fruit meant to a community living in the desert), the debate between literal and figurative (in a table, with no preference made), and the scope of the address.

I make only one addition here, and it is particular to this verse: this verse places the word مَّثَل at the head of the description — mathalu'l-jannati.

And there is disagreement over the meaning of the word mathal:

I make no preference. I record this much: the root م-ث-ل occurs three times in this sūra (3, 10, 38), and its occurrence in the third verse was explicitly in the sense of "giving a likeness": kadhālika yaḍribu'llāhu li'n-nāsi amthālahum.

This appears to support the second view; but a root is not obliged to be used in the same sense throughout a sūra, and I make no preference.