Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 76 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:76

مُتَّكِـِٔينَ عَلَىٰ رَفْرَفٍ خُضْرٍ وَعَبْقَرِىٍّ حِسَانٍ

“Reclining on green cushions and beautiful fine carpets.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The last thing described in the Garden is rest: green cushions, and carpets named with a word the Arabs kept for work beyond human hands.

A reflection

'Which shop sold you this?'

Most readers hear this last description of the Garden as more furniture. Cushions and carpets, a soft end to a long list.

The first hearers heard a word with a story in it.

ʿAbqarī comes from ʿAbqar, a place in the desert that the Arabs claimed was the country of the jinn. No one could say where it lay. But anything astonishingly well made was credited to it. A cloth too fine, a carpet too intricate, a man too gifted: it was ʿabqarī, as if it were not human work at all. One lexicon adds that a town was also known by the name for weaving cloth of great beauty.

One commentary sums it up in a sentence. The Arabs attributed to ʿAbqar everything they marvelled at for skill and workmanship, and then Allah addressed them with what they knew.

A grandmother spends two winters embroidering a shawl for her granddaughter's wedding. At the reception, three guests ask where it was bought. When she says she made it, one of them simply does not believe her. 'No one could do that by hand.'

That is the feeling in the word. Work so fine that people reach for a source beyond the human.

Now hear the ayah. The people of the lower gardens recline on ʿabqarī carpets. Not something like the best of human craft, but something beyond it. It is named with the word the Arabs used when human craft seemed too small an explanation.

And the One who made those carpets is the One who made the jinn too. The surah has been speaking to both all along.

The refrain will follow in a moment. Before it does, picture a carpet so fine that even the jinn's country would not be credit enough.

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.