Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 74 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:74

لَمْ يَطْمِثْهُنَّ إِنسٌ قَبْلَهُمْ وَلَا جَآنٌّ

“Untouched before them by man or jinnī -”

Saheeh International

Essence

The same words return exactly, from the higher gardens to the lower: what changes between the ranks is beauty's measure, never the purity.

A reflection

'Will you be here in the morning?'

Most readers, meeting this ayah, feel a flicker of déjà vu and move on. They have heard these exact words eighteen ayat earlier (55:56). It sounds like a line copied across, nothing new to see.

But children know something about repeated words that adults forget.

A girl of five, the week after her grandmother's funeral, asks her father at bedtime: will you be here in the morning? He says yes. Two minutes later, as he reaches the door, she asks again. Same words. He comes back, sits on the bed and gives the same answer, in the same words. She needed the sentence twice. The second time is the one she sleeps on.

Some promises are repeated not because the listener forgot, but because the listener needs to be sure.

One commentary explains why this line returns. It is repeated, it says, to show something. The companions kept in tents, in the lower gardens, share exactly the description of those who restrain their gaze, in the higher. The same promise, given again, so that no one in the second garden wonders whether it applies to them.

That is the gift of the exact repetition. Not a new image. The same words, deliberately, for a second audience.

The refrain after it will ask, once more, which favour you would deny. Before it does, notice what has just happened. A promise made to the foremost has been repeated, word for word, to everyone else.

The practice is simple. When you recite this surah, do not hurry over the repeated line as a copy. Slow down on it, as you would on a promise someone you love has said to you twice.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.