إِنَّ ٱلْمُتَّقِينَ فِى جَنَّٰتٍۢ وَنَعِيمٍۢ
Indeed the Godwary will be amid gardens and bliss,
فَٰكِهِينَ بِمَآ ءَاتَىٰهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ وَوَقَىٰهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ عَذَابَ ٱلْجَحِيمِ
rejoicing because of what their Lord has given them, and that their Lord has saved them from the punishment of hell.
كُلُوا۟ وَٱشْرَبُوا۟ هَنِيٓـًٔۢا بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
[They will be told:] ‘Enjoy your food and drink, [as a reward] for what you used to do.’
مُتَّكِـِٔينَ عَلَىٰ سُرُرٍۢ مَّصْفُوفَةٍۢ ۖ وَزَوَّجْنَٰهُم بِحُورٍ عِينٍۢ
They will be reclining on arrayed couches, and We will wed them to big-eyed houris.
وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَٱتَّبَعَتْهُمْ ذُرِّيَّتُهُم بِإِيمَٰنٍ أَلْحَقْنَا بِهِمْ ذُرِّيَّتَهُمْ وَمَآ أَلَتْنَٰهُم مِّنْ عَمَلِهِم مِّن شَىْءٍۢ ۚ كُلُّ ٱمْرِئٍۭ بِمَا كَسَبَ رَهِينٌۭ
The faithful and their descendants who followed them in faith—We will make their descendants join them, and We will not stint anything from [the reward of] their deeds. Every person is hostage to what he has earned.
وَأَمْدَدْنَٰهُم بِفَٰكِهَةٍۢ وَلَحْمٍۢ مِّمَّا يَشْتَهُونَ
We will provide them with fruits and meat, such as they desire.
يَتَنَٰزَعُونَ فِيهَا كَأْسًۭا لَّا لَغْوٌۭ فِيهَا وَلَا تَأْثِيمٌۭ
There they will pass from hand to hand a cup wherein there will be neither any vain talk nor sinful speech.
۞ وَيَطُوفُ عَلَيْهِمْ غِلْمَانٌۭ لَّهُمْ كَأَنَّهُمْ لُؤْلُؤٌۭ مَّكْنُونٌۭ
They will be waited upon by their youths, as if they were guarded pearls.
وَأَقْبَلَ بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍۢ يَتَسَآءَلُونَ
They will turn to one another, questioning each other.
قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا كُنَّا قَبْلُ فِىٓ أَهْلِنَا مُشْفِقِينَ
They will say, ‘Indeed, aforetime, we used to be apprehensive about our families.
فَمَنَّ ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْنَا وَوَقَىٰنَا عَذَابَ ٱلسَّمُومِ
But Allah showed us favour and He saved us from the punishment of the [infernal] miasma.
إِنَّا كُنَّا مِن قَبْلُ نَدْعُوهُ ۖ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلْبَرُّ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
We used to supplicate Him aforetime. Indeed He is the All-benign, the All-merciful.’
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Against the deniers' doom the passage sets the reward of the God-fearing: gardens and bliss, security from the Blaze, food and drink with relish, couches in rows, wide-eyed houris; then the joining of their offspring to them without loss to the fathers' reward, the reminder that every man is pledged for what he earned, fruit and meat, a cup without vanity or sin, pearl-like serving boys, and the saved recalling their former dread and thanking the All-Benign, the Merciful (al-Barr, al-Rahim).
al-Tabarsi and al-Tusi carry the philology and the mainstream readings: fakihin as delighting or marvelling; masfufa as couches ranged and joined; hur al-ʿin as the pure-white and wide-eyed, the tazwij being pairing for enjoyment — a point al-Mizan sharpens grammatically (the verb's transitivity with the baʾ shows coupling, not contract-marriage). On the wide-eyed houris al-Tabarsi relays the Zayd b. Arqam report on the strength of the people of Paradise. On lā laghwa fīhā wa-lā taʾthīm, al-Tusi discusses the nominative/accusative readings; al-Mizan and al-Qummi gloss it as the wine-cup purified of the world's drunken folly — al-Qummi memorably: no ribald song nor obscenity in Paradise; the believer drinks and incurs no sin.
The verse of the joined offspring (v.21) is the passage's centre of gravity. al-Mizan reads it as a verse of gracious favour (imtinan): God will raise to the believing fathers their children who followed them with some faith, though short of the fathers' degree, to gladden their eyes — and We diminished them nothing guards the fathers' own reward from any shortfall; he rejects as feeble the readings that make "offspring" only infants or refer the diminution to the children, and (with al-Tabarsi) supports it with the angels' prayer in 40:8. al-Tabarsi and al-Tusi add the juristic frame: the young are ruled Muslim after the father, the grown joined for their own faith, and the fathers lose nothing.
The Imami sources give the verse a walaya reading, rendered as-attributed. al-Qummi and al-Bahrani transmit from al-Sadiq that those who believed are the Prophet and the Commander of the Faithful and the offspring are the Imams and Legatees — "their proof is one and their obedience is one." Around this, al-Bahrani's single vv.21-40 block heaps narrations: Fatima (as) rears the infants of the Shiʿa (also in al-Qummi and cited by al-Mizan from al-Kafi and al-Tawhid); Abraham and Sarah nourish believers' children from a tree in Paradise (al-Faqih); the grand Fatima-on-the-Sirat scene; and the report that God recompensed al-Husayn (as) with the Imamate in his progeny, healing in his earth, and answered prayer at his grave. al-Mizan and al-Tabarsi close on al-Barr: the Subtle-and-Kind (or Truthful in promise), whose grace to these callers-upon-Him parallels Surat al-ʿAsr.