As-Saaffaat (Those drawn up in Ranks)

45. “Round will go unto them a cup (of wine) from a clear spring,”

46. “Crystal-white, delicious to the drinkers,”

47. “Free from headiness, nor will they suffer intoxication from it.”

Being entertained in Paradise is not limited to a particular side, but the bounties are turned round from every side of the people of Paradise.

In the fifth stage of the statement of the merits of the people of Paradise, the words are about their purified drink. It says:

“Round will go unto them a cup (of wine) from a clear spring,”

Whenever they decide they can be satiated from its cup and can feel its world of mirth and spirituality.

These cups are not set in a corner or a place that they come and ask for one of them, but these cups will be turned round unto them.

The Arabic word /ka’s/ philologically is called to a cup which is completely full, and if it is rather empty it is called ‘goblet’.

Raqib in Mufradat says:

“Cup is a container which is full of beverage.”

The Qur’anic term /ma‘in/ is derived from /ma‘n/ in the sense of ‘flow’. It points to this fact that there are some flowing springs therein which have purified wine out of which every moment the cups are filled and turned round among the people of Paradise.

It is not such that this purified wine finishes or that it may need any trouble, pain, and task to be provided, or that it may become old, decayed, and imperfect.

Then, the second holy verse explains these cups of purified wine.

It says:

“Crystal-white, delicious to the drinkers,”

The pleasures in Heaven have no hidden and manifest evil sequels. The heavenly wine is delicious, but it has not the intoxication and other sequels of the worldly wine.

The third holy verse, by mentioning a short and expressive sentence, explaining that purified wine, says:

“Free from headiness, nor will they suffer intoxication from it.”

And there is nothing in it but spiritual intelligence, mirth, and joy.

The Arabic word /qaul/ originally is in the sense of a corruption which penetrates into a thing in a hidden manner and it is for this reason that, in the literature of Arab, the hidden murders and terrors are called /qilah/.

The Arabic term /yunzafun/ originally is derived from /nazf/ in the sense of ‘to destroy something gradually’. When this word is used for the water of a well, its concept is that the water is gradually taken out from the well until when it finishes.

However, the purpose of it in the verse under discussion is that the gradual destruction of intellect does not absolutely exist in the purified wine of Paradise. It neither decreases the intellect, nor does it cause any infection.

These two meanings are implicitly very thin and exact about the worldly wines and alcoholic materials which gradually influence in man’s body and cause destruction and decadence in it.

It not only spoils intellect and the system of nerves, but also it has an undeniable destructive effect on all systems of man’s body, irrespective of heart, blood vessels, stomach, kidneys, and liver. As if it destroys man. And also like the water of a well, it gradually decreases the man’s intellect and intelligence until when it empties it.

But, in Hereafter the purified wine of Allah is free from all these qualities.