Az-Zukhruf (Ornaments of gold)

68. [God says unto them:] My servants! No fear shall be on you this Day, nor shall you grieve.

69. Those who believe in Our Ayat [Verses, Signs, Proofs] and are submitted [to Truth] at all times.

70. Enter Paradise, you and your wives in happiness.

Submission to the Will of God Almighty guarantees security from fears and perils on the Day of Resurrection.

Serenity will precede benefiting from Bounties in Paradise:

(“No fear shall be on you this Day, nor shall you grieve”).

Having faith is insufficient; we have to be totally submitted to Divine Will.

The phrase:

“O servants!”

in the blessed Verse in question is addressed to the God fearing pious admitting them to Paradise on the Day of Resurrection free of excruciating grieves and fears of torments and afflictions experienced by people in this world.

Such believers do not have to entertain sorrow for their past lives since they did not waste their mundane life. They will neither regret nor grieve on the Day of Judgment. The Verse proceeds with saying that the pious shall benefit from Divine Infinite Mercy and Bounties.

Verse 69 makes a reference to certain characteristics of God’s servants who are praised for worshipping God. Those are the ones who believed in Divine Signs (or Verses, i.e., the Holy Qur’an) and totally and unconditionally submitted to His Commands and Injunctions imparted to them through His Messenger, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah (S).

These God fearing, pious, and endeared servants are further depicted by two more clauses, i.e.,

“Those who believed in Our Ayat and submitted to our Command.”1

They are those who are addressed by such glorious appellations and benefit from such divine Bounties. In fact, the two aforesaid clauses provide a precise depiction of their belief and practice. Faith (iman) specifies the firm bases of their beliefs and submission to the Will of God (islam) explicates their act of submission to Divine Commands and Injunctions.

Verse 70 says:

“Enter Paradise”

which is addressed to the pious by the Most Gracious and All-Great Allah. Thus, their host is actually God who invited His company and now is asking them to enter Paradise.

Then mention is made of the first Bounty to be bestowed upon them, i.e.,

“you and your wives.”

It is evident that being with faithful and kind spouses is a source of pleasure for both men and women since they were their partners in mundane sorrows and now they may be their partners in happiness in the Hereafter.

The Verse further says unto believers that they may enjoy happiness such that your faces may be illumined by it.

The verb form:

tuhbarun (lit. “you are happy”) derives from hibr (“compose thoughts effectively) and at times it is employed in the sense of the features of happiness reflected in countenance.

The word hibr (pl. ahbar) is also used to refer to scholars since they affect human societies, as it is reported from the Command of the Faithful, Imam ‘Ali (as):

“Scholars will live to the end of the world, their persons will be lost but their works will live on in hearts.”2