Al-Insan · Madani · ayah 15 of 31

Al-Insan 76:15

وَيُطَافُ عَلَيْهِم بِـَٔانِيَةٍ مِّن فِضَّةٍ وَأَكْوَابٍ كَانَتْ قَوَارِيرَا۠

“And there will be circulated among them vessels of silver and cups having been [created] clear [as glass],”

Saheeh International

Essence

The silver that kings kept behind closed doors, and that believers were told to leave to others here, keeps coming round to them there.

A reflection

Theirs here, yours there

A Year 6 class on a school trip files through a stately home. In the dining room, behind a red rope, a long table is laid with a silver dinner service. The guide says nobody has eaten off it for a hundred years. A boy at the back asks who it was for. The family, says the guide, and their guests. Never the staff.

Silver vessels have always meant that: the table of the few. In the world of the first hearers, such things belonged to the courts of Persia and Byzantium. The Muslims of Madina ate barley bread, often not enough of it, from bowls of wood and clay.

Both Sahihs record what the Prophet ﷺ told his companions about vessels of gold and silver, and about silk and brocade. 'They are theirs in this world, and yours in the Hereafter'.

Now this ayah arrives. Vessels of silver, brought round to them. The very thing they had been told to leave to others is described as waiting for them. The first hearers did not hear a list of luxuries. They heard a promise being kept, item by item.

Notice what that saying does to the heart. It does not call silver ugly, or make the love of beautiful things shameful. It moves the beautiful thing to another table. What a believer leaves here is not lost. It is set aside, under their name.

The commentaries add that the Garden's vessels are not only silver. Another ayah speaks of platters of gold (43:71). The Prophet ﷺ described the first group to enter the Garden with vessels of gold (Sahih al-Bukhari). One commentary says they drink from both, at different times. Another says silver is named here to lead the mind on to gold.

The boy in the stately home was not allowed past the rope. In the Garden there is no rope, and the silver is not on display. It is being carried round, to you.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.