al-Wāqiʿa 56:17-18

Yaṭūfu ʿalayhim wildānun mukhalladūn · Bi-akwābin wa abārīqa wa kaʾsin min maʿīn "Immortal youths go round among them with goblets and ewers and a cup from a flowing spring."

Root: ط-و-ف. It was treated in the section on al-Insān: ṭawāf, ṭāʾifa, ṭūfān, ṭāʾif. I do not repeat it.

And there is a difference of word order, visible when compared with Sūrat al-Insān.

In Sūrat al-Insān the verb came first in the passive (yuṭāfu ʿalayhim, 76/15) and four verses later in the active (yaṭūfu ʿalayhim, 76/19); in the section on al-Insān this was recorded as a technique of description: first the look of the scene, then the persons in it.

Al-Wāqiʿa does these two steps in one: the verb comes directly in the active and the subject is given at once. There is no interval.

I record this as an observation. Two sūras build the same scene at two different speeds.

This construction was treated in detail in the section on al-Insān 76/19, and three explanations were tabulated there (made immortal / unchanging in age / wearing earrings). No preference was expressed there, and this was written plainly:

"The text says nothing further about whom this word points to or about the nature of these beings. The Qurʾān gives no detail on this; nor do I."

That note is preserved here exactly. I make no choice, I say nothing about their nature, and I do not relay the details found in the classical sources.

The one thing to be added here is a datum of wording: this construction occurs in two places in the Qurʾān — al-Wāqiʿa 56/17 and al-Insān 76/19 — and in both together with the same verb (ط-و-ف). In the section on al-Muzzammil these two places were already mentioned side by side.

And the contrast made in the section on al-Muzzammil may be recalled here as well: "There the wildān are those who do not grow old. Here the wildān are those who grow old before their time" (the reference is to yawman yajʿalu'l-wildāna shībā at al-Muzzammil 73/17). The same word, two opposite states in two sūras.

The verse names three separate vessels, and all three are for different tasks. This is one of the places where the Qurʾān's fineness in description can be seen.

أَكْوَاب — its singular is كُوب. It was treated in the sections on al-Insān and al-Ghāshiya, and the same description was given in both:

Kūb is a cup with neither handle nor spout. It has no place to be gripped, no mouth to pour from; a round vessel that can be drunk from at any point.

The conclusion added in the section on al-Ghāshiya was this: "the kūb is a vessel made for drinking, not for carrying. A handle serves for carrying."

أَبَارِيق — its singular is إِبْرِيق. The word occurs in the Qurʾān only here.

And it is the exact opposite of the kūb: a vessel with handle and spout. Made, that is, for pouring and carrying.

The lexicographers differ over the word's origin:

Both explanations are found in the classical lexicons. I issue no firm judgement. Those who maintain the second tie the word to an Arabic origin; the first accepts that the word is of foreign origin. Whether there are words of foreign origin in the Qurʾān is a separate and old debate; I do not enter it here.

What is certain is the difference of function: the kūb is for drinking, the ibrīq for filling.

كَأْس — a cup. And there is a detail recorded by the lexicographers which is instructive:

In Arabic, كَأْس is used only when there is drink in it. An empty cup is called qadaḥ, not kaʾs.

The word is not the name of a vessel, that is, but the name of a full vessel. There is no English equivalent.

When the three vessels are set side by side an order of service emerges:

I record this as an observation; the descriptions of the words are the lexicographers' data, the order I set among them is mine.

There are two views about the word's root:

Both are maintained in the classical sources and no practical difference of sense arises: in either case what is meant is flowing water that comes from a source.

In the section on al-Muṭaffifīn the polysemy of the word عَيْن in Arabic (eye, spring, the very substance of a thing, a spy) was recorded, along with their all meeting in the idea of a source. If the second derivation is correct, that note extends to here as well.

And what the word conveys matters: this drink is not stored but flowing.

A drink standing in a vessel runs out. Water coming from a source does not. At al-Ghāshiya 88/12 the same idea was given with another word: fīhā ʿaynun jāriya — "in it is a flowing spring".

And the sūra will say this once more a few verses later: in verse 33 the fruits will be "neither cut off nor forbidden". The shared emphasis of the tables, that is, is unbrokenness.