Tafseer of The letter Saad · Saad · 38:50
Gardens of perpetual residence, whose doors will be opened to them.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The statement concerning the explanation of His word, the Exalted: ( جَنَّاتِ عَدْنٍ مُفَتَّحَةً لَهُمُ الأَبْوَابُ ) (50) ("Gardens of ʿAdn (abode), whose gates are opened for them") (50).
His word, the Exalted, whose remembrance is exalted: ( جَنَّاتِ عَدْنٍ ) ("gardens of ʿAdn"): this is an elucidation of and a clarification for the "good place of return," and its meaning is: gardens of abode. We have already explained its meaning with its proof-texts, and we have mentioned the disagreement concerning it in what preceded, in a manner that makes it unnecessary to repeat it in this place.
And Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, His word ( جَنَّاتِ عَدْنٍ ), he said: ʿUmar asked Kaʿb: what is ʿAdn? He said: O Commander of the Believers, they are palaces in Paradise (janna), of gold, inhabited by the prophets, the truthful ones (ṣiddīqūn), the martyrs, and the righteous leaders.
And His word ( مُفَتَّحَةً لَهُمُ الأبْوَابُ ), He means: whose gates are opened for them. And the alif and the lām (the definite article) in "al-abwāb" (the gates) have been inserted in place of the genitive construction (iḍāfa), as it is said: ( فَإِنَّ الْجَنَّةَ هِيَ الْمَأْوَى ) ("then Paradise is indeed the abode"), in the meaning of: it is his abode; and as the poet said:
"Ḥayya, the daughter of Mālik, did not bear you
out of fornication, nor was it lying talk;
but we see our feet in your sandals,
and our noses between the beards and the eyebrows" (3),
in the meaning of: between your beards and your eyebrows. And if "al-abwāb" had come in the accusative (naṣb), that would not have been a grammatical error, and the accusative would rest upon one's relating "mufattaḥa," in terms of wording, to "jannāt" (the gardens), even though, in terms of meaning, it is to the gates; and it would be like the saying of the poet:
"And my people do not belong to Thaʿlaba ibn Saʿd,
nor to Fazāra — the hairy-necked ones" (4),
whereupon one would provide "mufattaḥa" with tanwīn and put "al-abwāb" in the accusative.
And if a speaker were to say to us: and what beneficial report is contained in His word ( مُفَتَّحَةً لَهُمُ الأبْوَابُ ), that He should mention it? — then it is answered: the benefit therein is that Allah, the Exalted, informs concerning those gates that they are opened for them without the inhabitants opening them themselves, not by the exertion of a hand or a limb, but by the command, as has been mentioned.
As Aḥmad ibn al-Walīd al-Ramlī related to us, saying: Ibn Nufayl related to us, saying: Ibn Duʿayj related to us, on the authority of al-Ḥasan, concerning His word ( مُفَتَّحَةً لَهُمُ الأبْوَابُ ), he said: they are gates that speak; one speaks: open, close.
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The footnotes:
(3) The two verses are among the witness-verses of al-Farrāʾ in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (folio 281) for the fact that His word, the Exalted, "mufattaḥa lahum al-abwāb" places "the gates" in the nominative (rafʿ), because the meaning is: whose gates are opened for them. And the Arabs make the alif and the lām a substitute for the genitive construction; and to that belongs His word: "fa-inna al-jaḥīma hiya al-maʾwā," in which the meaning — and Allah knows best — is: his abode. And similar to it is the saying of the poet: "Ḥayya, the daughter of Rabʿiyya, did not bear you ... the two verses," whose meaning is: we see our noses between your beards and your eyebrows, by way of similitude. End. And "Ḥayya, the daughter of Mālik" is a tribe; and "sifāḥan": fornication (zinā); and "al-liḥā": the plural of "liḥya" (beard).
(4) The verse is by al-Ḥārith ibn Ẓālim al-Murrī, from a qaṣīda in the wāfir meter which he uttered when he fled from al-Nuʿmān ibn al-Mundhir and joined Quraysh. (See Farāʾid al-qalāʾid fī mukhtaṣar sharḥ al-shawāhid by al-ʿAynī, p. 264.) And the transmission in it is "al-shaʿr" without an alif after the rāʾ. He said: and the witness-point lies in "al-shaʿr al-riqāba," for that is like "al-ḥasan al-wajh" (the handsome of face) with "al-wajh" in the accusative, because it resembles a direct object (since "al-shaʿr" is the plural of "ashʿar," which has much body-hair, an assimilated adjectival form). Al-Farrāʾ cited the verse in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (folio 281) together with the preceding witness-verse, and said concerning His word, the Exalted, "mufattaḥa lahum al-abwāb": and if one had said "mufattaḥa lahum al-abwāb" (with "al-abwāb" in the accusative), relating "al-mufattaḥa," in terms of wording, to the gardens and, in terms of meaning, to the gates, then it would be like the saying of the poet:
"My people do not belong to Thaʿlaba ibn Saʿd,
nor to Fazāra — the hairy-necked ones."
And al-Farrāʾ, in his discourse, gave no apodosis for "law" (if) ... that is to say: then it would have been a valid construction. The upshot is that the word "al-abwāb" in His word, the Exalted, "mufattaḥa lahum al-abwāb" admits of two possible parsings: the nominative, as the deputy-agent (plaatsvervangend onderwerp / nāʾib al-fāʿil), that is to say: whose gates are opened for them; and the accusative, in which the deputy-agent is a pronoun referring back to the gardens, and one places "al-abwāb" in the accusative because it resembles a direct object. Likewise in his saying "al-shaʿr al-riqāba": the accusative in it rests upon its resembling a direct object, because its verb "shaʿara" is intransitive and does not place a direct object in the accusative; and according to the transmission "al-shaʿrā riqāban," one places "riqāban" in the accusative as a specification (tamyīz). And see [the discussion of] the government of the passive participle and the government of the assimilated adjectival form in al-Taṣrīḥ and al-Ashmūnī.
