وَحُورٌ عِينٌ · كَأَمْثَٰلِ ٱللُّؤْلُؤِ ٱلْمَكْنُونِ
These two verses are among the most abused places in the Qurʾān's descriptions. They are abused from two directions: on the one hand they are spoken of in a reductive idiom that lowers the seriousness of the text, and on the other, in a defensive reflex, the words are cut loose from their meanings.
The way followed in this commentary is this: the root sense of the words is given, the readings the grammar permits are enumerated, what is widespread in the classical exegeses is relayed, and where there is no certainty nothing is said with certainty. What the verse does not say is not made to be said by it, either in a positive or in a negative direction.
The word is the plural of ḥawrāʾ (feminine) or of aḥwar (masculine). The pattern is open to both genders: in Arabic this plural on the fuʿl pattern is the plural of both the masculine and the feminine singular, as in the example aḥmar/ḥamrāʾ → ḥumr.
| Branch | Example | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ḥāra yaḥūru | To turn, to return |
| 2 | al-ḥawāriyy | Whiteness — flour, bleached cloth |
| 3 | al-ḥawar (in the eye) | The white of the eye being very white and its black very black |
The first branch has already occurred in this commentary. Al-Inshiqāq 84/14: innahu ẓanna an lan yaḥūr — "he supposed that he would never return". The same root.
The second branch has occurred too. In the analysis of al-ḥawāriyyūn at al-Ṣaff 61/14 (al-Ṣaff) the word's relation to whiteness and purity was recorded.
The third branch is the direct subject of this verse. The description the lexicographers give for ḥawar is this: the white and the black of the eye being sharply distinct. The word conveys not a colour, that is, but a contrast.
And it is a word concerning the eye — not the body. This is what the word says on its own, and descriptions going beyond it are not in the wording of the verse.
The root ع-ي-ن is one of the widest roots in Arabic: ʿayn means eye, spring, and also the very substance of a thing (ʿaynu'sh-shayʾ). What joins the three senses, according to the lexicographers, is the idea of a source: the eye is where seeing comes out, the spring where water comes out, and ʿayn where the thing itself comes out.
Together the two words describe a single thing: the eye. Not stature, not figure, not anything else. The one organ the verse describes is the eye, and this is a boundary that must be recorded.
A reading of this can be made, and I state that it is my own: the eye is the part of the body concerned with looking. To describe a being by its eye is to name it not as an object but as one who looks.
There is a variant reading in this verse that changes the sense, and per the method (Method) it must be recorded. Two readings are transmitted:
| Reading | Case | Its place in the sentence | The sense that arises |
|---|---|---|---|
| وَحُورٌ عِينٌ (nominative) | A subject, or the subject of an omitted predicate | A new sentence | "And there are wide-eyed ḥūr there" — an independent statement |
| وَحُورٍ عِينٍ (genitive) | In apposition to bi-akwābin (verses 17-18) | A continuation of what precedes | Added to the list of what is carried round |
The sense arising from the second reading has been dwelt upon: the objects of the verb yaṭūfu ʿalayhim were the goblets, the ewers and the cup; if the apposition is made, the ḥūr too become part of that series.
It is widely transmitted that the classical exegeses prefer the first reading, the ground given being that to be the object of a verb of carrying round does not suit these beings. I relay this preference; I issue no binding judgement of my own.
I ascribe nothing by name to any authority of the variant readings. I content myself with recording that the two readings are transmitted and what the difference of sense is.
The particle of comparison is doubled: ka (like) + amthāl (the likes of). "Like the likes of a hidden pearl." In Arabic this doubling does not weaken the comparison; it marks the distance between the terms — it does not say "like a pearl" outright, it says "like the likes of a pearl".
The root ك-ن-ن. The concrete sense: to cover, to conceal, to put inside a container. Kinān — a case; maknūn — kept within its case.
The same attribute, twice in the same sūra. In the seventy-eighth verse it will be used of the place where the Qurʾān is. This is a verifiable repetition within the sūra.
What is the attribute's function? The lexicographers record that a maknūn pearl is one never taken out of its shell. Untouched, that is, unexposed to air, its colour unspoiled.
This may be the real idea the comparison carries, and I give it as my own reading: the comparison is not about brightness but about untouchedness. The worth comes not from the appearance but from having been kept.
And this accords with the preceding section: mukhalladūn (made lasting) in verse 17 was likewise a word of not-spoiling. What is repeated throughout the section is not changing.
- The verse does not say who these beings are. The dominant reading in the classical exegeses is that they are the spouses of the people of the Garden; this reading is supported by other verses of the sūra (especially 56/35-37) and by the Qurʾān's other descriptions of the Garden. I relay this reading.
- The verse gives no number. The figures transmitted on this matter are not found in the Qurʾān; no number will be mentioned in this commentary.
- The verse specifies no gender. The pattern of the words is, as recorded above, open to both genders. The dominant reading of the classical exegeses is in the feminine direction. I record the openness of the pattern as a linguistic datum and the preference of the exegetes as a transmitted report, separately.
- The verse does not say what kind of reality this description is. The measure recorded in the section on al-Baqara 2/25 holds here too and has been repeated several times in this sūra: the material is taken from the hearer's experience; that the description is sensory does not show that what is described is sensory.