Tafseer of The Announcement · An-Naba · 78:24
They will not taste therein [any] coolness or drink
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.
His word: لا يَذُوقُونَ فِيهَا بَرْدًا وَلا شَرَابًا ("They taste therein neither coolness nor drink"). He says: They taste therein no coolness that cools from them the heat of the blazing fire (saʿīr), except al-ghassāq, and no drink that quenches them from the severe thirst that torments them, except the boiling water (ḥamīm). And some of the scholars of the language of the Arabs claimed that al-bard ("coolness") in this place is sleep, and that the meaning of the words is: they taste therein neither sleep nor drink; and he adduced as evidence for his statement the saying of al-Kindī:
Cool became her lips to me, and she held me back from her and from her kiss — the bard (8)
By al-bard he means: slumber. And sleep, even if it cools the burning of thirst and is therefore called "coolness" (al-bard), does not bear its well-known name. And the explanation of the Book of Allah rests upon the most frequent, well-known meaning in the language of the Arabs, and not upon anything else.
And in accordance with what we have said about this, the exegetes spoke.
* Mention of who said that:
Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, he said: Mihrān related to us, on the authority of Abū Jaʿfar, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ: لا يَذُوقُونَ فِيهَا بَرْدًا وَلا شَرَابًا * إِلا حَمِيمًا وَغَسَّاقًا ("They taste therein neither coolness nor drink, except boiling water and al-ghassāq") — thus he made the exception from the drink to be the boiling water (ḥamīm), and from the coolness (bard): al-ghassāq.
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Footnotes:
(8) The author attributed it to al-Kindī. (And he said: that by al-bard slumber is meant, according to what some of those who know the language of the Arabs have said.) In al-Lisān ["bard"] al-Aṣmaʿī says: I said to a bedouin: what brings you to the morning nap? He said: indeed, it is cooling in the summer and warming in the winter. End of quotation. And al-Azharī said concerning His word, the Exalted: لا يذوقون فيها بردا ولا شرابا: it is related from Ibn ʿAbbās that he said: they taste therein neither the coolness of the drink nor the drink. He said: and some said: "they taste therein no bard," by which sleep is meant, and indeed sleep cools its possessor, and indeed the thirsty one sleeps and is cooled by sleep. End of quotation. And the last statement is the statement of al-Farrāʾ (in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, 355).