وَمِزَاجُهُۥ مِن تَسْنِيمٍ • عَيْنًا يَشْرَبُ بِهَا ٱلْمُقَرَّبُونَ
Wa mizājuhu min tasnīm • ʿAynan yashrabu bihā'l-muqarrabūn "And its admixture is of Tasnīm; a spring from which those brought near drink."
Root: م-ز-ج. To mix, to add one thing to another. Mizāj — an addition, a mixture; and it later acquired the sense of "temperament, disposition" as well (from the idea of the mixture of the elements in the body).
The word occurs in three places in the Qurʾān, and in all three in the same context — the admixture of the drink of the garden:
A question arises: in verse 25 the drink was described as رَحِيق — pure, unmixed. Now an admixture is spoken of. Is this not a contradiction?
The answer the classical exegetes give is this: raḥīq conveys being cleared of sediment and of any spoiling substance; mizāj, however, is the adding of something valuable. An addition that increases, then, not one that diminishes.
And this accords with the subject of the sūra: taṭfīf was an intervention that diminished; the intervention here adds.
- سَنَام (sanām) — the hump of a camel. The highest point of the camel. In Arabic it is used for the highest point of anything.
- تَسْنِيم (tasnīm) — to raise. From the same root, the raising of a grave into a mound is also given this name.
- سَنِمَ — it rose, its hump grew.
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| A proper name | It is the name of a spring in the garden; the word is not derived |
| A description | It means "coming from above"; a water that flows from a height |
The sūra had set up two directions: سِجِّين below, عِلِّيُّون above. Now a third word of "above" comes: tasnīm.
That is, the book of the good is above, and the water they drink comes from above too. The sūra uses the vertical axis consistently.
I record this as an observation; the root senses of the words are the lexicographers' data, the axis I set up among them is an interpretation.
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Appositive substitute | It is a substitute for tasnīm: "of Tasnīm, that is, of a spring" |
| Accusative by way of praise | In the accusative through an implied verb ("I praise, I mean"); it conveys commendation |
| Specification | An explanatory element removing the indeterminacy |
| Circumstantial | It states a state |
The word عَيْن is a word of many senses in Arabic: eye, spring, the thing itself / its essence, and spy. What all of these have in common is that they concern a source or a seeing — a spring is the "eye" of water; the ʿayn of a thing is its essence.
And a nearness of wording arises with the sūra's theme of the eye: the same word means both "eye" and "spring", and this sūra is from beginning to end concerned with seeing. I record this as an observation about the wording; I set up no claim about the sense, because in the verse the word plainly means "spring".
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Bāʾ stands in place of min | "They drink of it". The use of particles in place of one another (tanāwub al-ḥurūf) |
| Bāʾ is in the sense of "with it" | That is, they drink the water of Tasnīm not as an admixture but directly; or they quench their thirst with it |
| The verb has taken the particle of yarwā (to be quenched), whose sense it carries | Rawiya bihi — he was quenched with it. The structure called taḍmīn |
The second view produces a difference of rank between the verses, and it is widely mentioned in the classical sources:
The abrār drink raḥīq, and tasnīm is mixed into it (mizājuhu min tasnīm). The muqarrabūn, however, drink of tasnīm itself.
That is, the same water reaches the two groups in two different ways: to the one as an admixture, to the other pure.
This reading accords with the distinction the sūra set up earlier: in verse 21 the muqarrabūn were bearing witness to the book of the abrār — that is, they appeared as distinct from them, in a position above them. Here the same distinction is repeated in the drink.
| ٱلْأَبْرَار | ٱلْمُقَرَّبُون | |
|---|---|---|
| Their book | In ʿilliyyūn | — (they bear witness to it) |
| Their drink | Raḥīq + an admixture of tasnīm | Tasnīm itself |
| Position | In bliss | Brought near |
This distinction accords with the threefold classification in Sūrat al-Wāqiʿa: "When you are three kinds: the companions of the right… the companions of the left… and the foremost, the foremost; those are the ones brought near." (al-Wāqiʿa 56/7-11, in paraphrase).
The note recorded in the section on al-Infiṭār finds its answer here: there it was stated that that sūra's twofold division (abrār / fujjār) does not divide people into two boxes, that the Qurʾān says elsewhere that there are degrees, and this sūra was pointed to. Now that pointer falls into place: al-Muṭaffifīn sets up a difference of degree on the side of the good.
And it is striking that no such distinction of degree is made on the side of the bad. The fujjār are a single group.
This is a continuation of the asymmetry recorded at verse 21: on the side of good there is extra detail, on the side of evil there is none.