تَرَى ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ مُشْفِقِينَ مِمَّا كَسَبُوا۟ وَهُوَ وَاقِعٌۢ بِهِمْ ۗ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ فِى رَوْضَاتِ ٱلْجَنَّاتِ ۖ لَهُم مَّا يَشَآءُونَ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ هُوَ ٱلْفَضْلُ ٱلْكَبِيرُ
Tara'ẓ-ẓālimīna mushfiqīna mimmā kasabū wa huwa wāqiʿun bihim; wa'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti fī rawḍāti'l-jannāt; lahum mā yashāʾūna ʿinda rabbihim; dhālika huwa'l-faḍlu'l-kabīr
"You will see the wrongdoers apprehensive of what they have earned — and it will fall upon them. Those who believed and did good works are in the meadows of the Gardens. Whatever they wish for is theirs with their Lord. That is the great bounty."
The mushfiqūn of the eighteenth verse returns here, and the difference was tabulated above: there the believers are apprehensive of what is coming, here the wrongdoers of what they have done.
Kasabū — root ك-س-ب. It was treated in al-Muddaththir: to obtain, to earn, to gather and bring in. And what was recorded there was this: the root is used in the Qurʾān for both good and evil and is neutral.
In this use the word's neutrality produces a sharpness: what a person fears is not a punishment coming from outside but his own earnings. The sentence puts "what they have earned" in the place of the thing feared.
وَهُوَ وَاقِعٌۢ بِهِمْ — "and it will fall upon them". Wāqiʿ is an active participle and conveys the future. The root و-ق-ع was treated in al-Wāqiʿa as the name of that sūra: to fall, to come down, to come to pass.
A point of arrangement: the sentence says the fear is not in vain. Usually fear is felt about something that will not happen, and one is consoled. Here it is the reverse: the fear is correct.
Rawḍa, in the lexicographers' description: a hollow or a level place where water gathers and where, for that reason, the vegetation is thick.
A rawḍa, that is, is not just any garden but a place that holds water. From the root come riyāḍ (its plural) and riyāḍa (the breaking in and training of an animal); the lexicographers link the second sense by way of "softening".
Rawḍāt is plural and occurs only here in the Qurʾān. Jannāt is plural too. The construction, then, is a plural of a plural: "the gardens of the gardens".
And the difference from the descriptions of the Garden recorded in al-Wāqiʿa and Qāf is this: there objects were enumerated — fruit, shade, spouses, vessels. Here a place is named, and after it comes a single sentence: lahum mā yashāʾūn — "whatever they wish is theirs."
No enumeration is made, that is. I record this as an observation about the arrangement: instead of a list, an open end has been set down.
Up to this point in the sūra the verb yashāʾ has always been used of God (8, 12, 13, 19, 21). Here for the first time it is used of a human being: mā yashāʾūn — "what they wish".
This is a fact that can be verified from the text, and I record it. And the qualification ʿinda rabbihim has been added: the wish is free, but where it stands is stated.
Al-faḍlu'l-kabīr — root ف-ض-ل: the part of a thing that is over and above what is needed; the surplus. It was treated in al-Jumuʿa and al-Ḥadīd. The root's original sense is "surplus"; faḍl, that is, is what is set on top of what is deserved.
And this stands on the same line as the verb nazid in the twentieth verse: something added. The twenty-sixth verse will join the two: wa yazīduhum min faḍlih — increase and surplus in the same verse.