Tafseer of The Inevitable · Al-Waaqia · 56:22
And [for them are] 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 interpretation of His word, the Exalted: En grootogige hoeri's (And wide-eyed maidens [ḥūr ʿīn]) (56:22)
The reciters differed over the reading of His word And wide-eyed maidens. Most of the reciters of Kūfa and some of the people of Medina read it as wa-ḥūrin ʿīnin with the kasra (genitive), making its inflection follow the inflection of what precedes it, namely the fruits and the flesh — even though that belongs to the things that are not passed around [in serving]; but because the intended meaning was known, they made the latter follow the former in inflection, as a poet said:
When the fair ones appear one day and they make up the eyebrows and the eyes (yuzajjijna).
For the eyes are made up with kohl and not pencilled (tuzajjaj); only the eyebrows are pencilled. But he made "the eyes" revert in inflection to "the eyebrows," because the listener knows the meaning of that. And as another said:
You hear from its bowels a rumbling, and at the two forelegs a hardness (jusʾa) and a spreading (badad).
Al-jusʾa is a coarseness in the hand, and that is not heard.
And some of the reciters of Medina, Mecca, and Kūfa, and some of the people of Basra, read it in the nominative (rafʿ): wa-ḥūrun ʿīnun, as a fresh beginning (ibtidāʾ); and they said: the wide-eyed maidens are not passed around, such that it would be permissible to join them in inflection to the inflection of "fruits" and "flesh"; rather it stands in the nominative with the meaning: and with them are wide-eyed maidens, or: for them are wide-eyed maidens.
And the correct view concerning that, in my opinion, is that one says: they are two well-known readings; a group of reciters has read each of the two, with the closeness of the meanings of both, so with whichever of the two readings the reciter reads, he does correctly. Al-ḥūr is the plural of ḥawrāʾ: she whose white of the eye is pure and whose black is intense. And al-ʿīn is the plural of ʿaynāʾ: she who is wide-eyed in beauty.
[Footnotes: (2) This evidentiary verse belongs to the testimonia of al-Farrāʾ in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (folio 323); this verse has already been discussed together with the evidentiary verse "and I saw your husband in the battle...". In (al-Lisān: z-j-j): "the woman pencilled her eyebrow with the pencil (mizajj): she made it thin and long." It is also said: she lengthened it with antimony. By the words "when the fair ones..." he meant in reality: "and they made up the eyes with kohl," as one says: "a drink of milk, dates, and curds," whereby "and he ate dates and curds" is meant; of this there are many. The poet said: "علفتها تبنا..." that is to say: and I gave her cold water to drink; he means that what occurs here arises only through implicitly assuming another verb by which the meaning becomes correct. Similar to it is the word of another: "O were your husband...", whose underlying reading is: "and bearing a lance." Ibn Barrī mentioned that al-Jawharī cited the second half of a verse as "zajjajat al-marʾatu ḥājibayhā... wa-zajjajna al-ḥawājiba wa-l-ʿuyūnā," and said: it is by al-Rāʿī, and the correct reading is "yuzajjijna"; and the first part of it is: "And a shiver of intoxication from a truthful stock, they make up the eyebrows and the eyes." And after it: "They made their camels kneel at Dhāt Ghisl, during the height of the day, while they smoothed the saddle-cloths." Dhāt Ghisl is a place; "yamhadna" means: they smooth/level; "al-kudūn" is the plural of kidn, which is that with which the woman covers her mount, of garment and the like.
(3) The verse belongs to the testimonia of al-Farrāʾ in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (folio 323). In (al-Lisān: l-gh-ṭ): al-laghṭ (with sukūn or with vocalization of the ghayn) are the indistinct, confused sounds and the clamor that is not understood. In (al-Lisān: j-s-ʾ): "jasaʾa al-shayʾu yajsaʾu jusūʾan, so it is jāsiʾ": hard and rough. "Jasaʾat yaduhu from labor tajsaʾu jasʾan": it became hard; the noun is al-jusʾa, like al-jurʿa. And al-jusʾa in mounts: stiffness of the joint; one speaks of an animal with stiff legs (jāsiʾat al-qawāʾim). In (al-Lisān: b-d-d): "a horse abadd, with the badad," that is to say widely spaced between the two forelegs; and it is said that it is the horse whose forelegs stand far from its flanks, and that is al-badad; "a camel abadd"; that is the one in whose forelegs there is a curvature (fatal). The point of evidence in the verse is: that he joined al-jusʾa and al-badad — both of which are seen and not heard — to "laghṭā," which is heard, and that on the basis of a presupposed verb, namely: "and you see at the two hands a hardness and a spreading." It is thus, like its counterparts, one of the testimonia that al-Farrāʾ has mentioned in this place. In the original "دئدا" stands in place of "بددا," and that arises from a scribal error of the copyists.]
