جَنَّٰتُ عَدْنٍ يَدْخُلُونَهَا يُحَلَّوْنَ فِيهَا مِنْ أَسَاوِرَ مِن ذَهَبٍ وَلُؤْلُؤًا … وَقَالُوا۟ ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَذْهَبَ عَنَّا ٱلْحَزَنَ … لَا يَمَسُّنَا فِيهَا نَصَبٌ وَلَا يَمَسُّنَا فِيهَا لُغُوبٌ
"The gardens of ʿAdn… there they are adorned with bracelets of gold and with pearls… They say: 'Praise belongs to God, who has taken grief away from us… No weariness touches us there, nor any exhaustion.'"
What is striking in the description of the recompense is not the objects enumerated but the words the dwellers speak.
I record this as my own reading: the sentence mentions not the thing gained but the thing lifted — grief. In al-Wāqiʿa the places where the descriptions of the Garden are enumerated object by object were treated; here the description is summed up by the ending of a feeling.
نَصَب and لُغُوب — both convey weariness; the lexicographers distinguish the first as the toil of the body, the second as the giving out of strength.
The word لُغُوب was treated in Qāf at 50/38 — there it was denied of God (wa mā massanā min lughūb). Here the same word is denied of the people of the Garden.
| Place | Of whom lughūb is denied |
|---|---|
| Qāf 50/38 | God — He did not tire in creating |
| Fāṭir 35/35 | Man — he will not tire there |
وَٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَهُمْ نَارُ جَهَنَّمَ لَا يُقْضَىٰ عَلَيْهِمْ فَيَمُوتُوا۟ وَلَا يُخَفَّفُ عَنْهُم مِّنْ عَذَابِهَا — "no decree is passed upon them that they should die, nor is anything of its punishment lightened for them."
The opposing tableau is built with two negations: neither an end nor a lightening. And in al-Zumar at 39/71 the questioning by the keepers in the scene of Hell was treated; here there is no speech — only duration.