Tafseer of The Smoke · Ad-Dukhaan · 44:54
Thus. And We will marry them to fair women with large, [beautiful] eyes.
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 saying, the Exalted: Thus it is; and We shall wed them to ḥūr ʿīn (wide-eyed white-skinned women) (54)
The Exalted, whose mention is exalted, says: just as We honored these God-fearing ones in the Hereafter by bringing them into the gardens (the Paradises) and clothing them therein with fine and heavy silk (sundus and istabraq), so too did We honor them by this, that We gave them as wives therein ḥūr among the women, and they are those who are pure in whiteness; their singular is: ḥawrāʾ.
Mujāhid used to say concerning the meaning of al-ḥūr, according to what Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me about it, he said: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, he said: ʿĪsā related to us; and al-Ḥārith related to me, he said: al-Ḥasan related to us, he said: Warqāʾ related to us, both on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, concerning His saying ( and We shall wed them to ḥūr ʿīn ): he said: We give them ḥūr in marriage. He said: and al-ḥūr are those at whom the gaze becomes bewildered; the marrow of their legs is visible from behind their garments, and the beholder sees his face in the liver of one of them as in a mirror, because of the fineness of the skin and the purity of the color. And this which Mujāhid said—that al-ḥūr means only that the gaze becomes bewildered therein—is a statement that has no meaning in the language of the Arabs, for al-ḥūr is only the plural of ḥawrāʾ, just as al-ḥumr is the plural of ḥamrāʾ, and al-sūd the plural of sawdāʾ. And ḥawrāʾ is only the faʿlāʾ form of al-ḥawar, which is the purity of whiteness, just as the pure-white of food is called al-ḥuwwārī. And we have already explained its meaning with its evidences previously.
And in agreement with what we have said concerning its meaning, the rest of the exegetes (ahl al-taʾwīl) spoke.
* Mention of who said that:
Bishr related to us, he said: Yazīd related to us, he said: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His saying ( Thus it is; and We shall wed them to ḥūr ʿīn ): he said: white, wide-eyed. He said: and in the reading of Ibn Masʿūd it is ( bi-ʿīs ʿīn ).
Ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us, he said: Ibn Thawr related to us, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His saying ( to ḥūr ʿīn ): he said: white, wide-eyed. He said: and in the reading of Ibn Masʿūd it is ( bi-ʿīs ʿīn ). And Ibn Masʿūd read it thus—that is to say that the meaning of al-ḥūr is other than what Mujāhid supposed, for al-ʿīs among the Arabs is the plural of ʿaysāʾ, and that is the white one among the camels, as al-Aʿshā said:
And many a distant, lonely desert in which the wolves howl,
have I made a whitish-grey [she-camel] bear beneath the saddle, loudly braying. (5)
By al-aʿyas he means: a white camel. As for al-ʿīn, it is the plural of ʿaynāʾ, and that is the wide-eyed one among the women.
And His saying ( they call therein )… the rest of the verse—He says: these God-fearing ones call in Paradise for every kind of the fruit of Paradise that they desire, secure therein that it will be cut off from them, or run out, or perish, and secure from the evil consequences of its harm and its unpleasantness. He says: that fruit there is not like the fruit of this world which we eat, while we fear its evil outcome, and the harmful consequence of its damage, along with its running out from us and being absent at certain times and moments.
And Qatāda used to direct the explanation of His saying ( secure ) toward what Bishr related to us.
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Footnotes:
(5) The verse is by al-Aʿshā of Banū Qays ibn Thaʿlaba (his dīwān, Cairo edition 1361). Therein the transmission reads: "qafr masāribuh" in the place of "taʿwī al-dhiʾāb bih". Al-mahmah: the desert; and nāziḥ: far-off. And qafr: empty of vegetation and of people. And masāribuh: its paths. And aʿyas: a white camel in which a reddish or dark tint is mixed. And al-raḥl: the wood that is fastened upon the camel in order to ride upon it. And naʿʿāb: from naʿabat al-ibil—when they stretch out their necks while going; and it is said that it is that the camel moves its head when it hastens (al-Lisān: naʿb). The evidentiary value of the verse for the author lies in this: that al-ʿīs among the Arabs is the plural of aʿyas and ʿaysāʾ, and that is the white she-camel, as it occurs in the poem of al-Aʿshā: al-aʿyas: the white camel.
