Al-Qiyaama (The Resurrection)

22. Some faces that Day shall be happy,

23. Looking at their Lord.

The blessed Verses treat of the states of the good doing believers and the evil doing disbelievers on the Day of Resurrection, saying:

“Some faces that Day shall be happy, looking at their Lord.”

The Arabic participial form nadhira, cognate with nadhra, connotes a particular kind of happiness which is consequent to affluence and welfare and is accompanied by felicity, beauty, and splendor. In other words, their appearance reflects their great happiness consequent to being endowed with Divine Bounties.

The same theme is to found elsewhere in the Holy Qur’an:

“You shall recognise in their faces [those of the people of Paradise] the splendor of delight”1 .

The blessed Verses 22 and 23 reflect the material and spiritual Bounties respectively. The blessed Verse 23 says that they only look at the Pure Essence of their Lord with their eye of heart and through inward intuition.

Such glance makes them absorbed in the Unique Essence and the Absolute Perfection and Beauty, such that one single moment of their exalted state is far superior to what exists in this world. In this vein, it is narrated from Imam Ridha (as) that they await their Lord’s Rewards.¹

It is noteworthy that the precedence of

“at their Lord”

over

“happy”

restricts the meaning, namely they solely look at Him not at anyone else.