Sūrat al-Raḥmān · Āyāt 33–55

What the passage says

These verses pivot, with the surah's drumbeat refrain "So which of your Lord's bounties will you both deny?" sounding between every line, from the terror of the Day of Judgment to the reward held in store for those who feared their Lord. The address is to "the two weighty ones" — jinn and humankind — named (al-thaqalān, from a root meaning weight and worth) for the gravity of their rank above the other creatures of the earth.

The challenge to flee (v.33). Jinn and humans are dared: if you can pass beyond the regions of the heavens and the earth to escape, then do it — but you never will, except "by an authority." Most of the six read this as the impossibility of escaping God's dominion on the Day of Resurrection: wherever you turn, there is His sovereignty. "Authority" (sulṭān) carries several senses they all weigh — sheer power, dominion, and a conclusive proof.

Fire with no escape (v.35). A flash of flame (shuwāẓ) and a smoke-or-molten-copper (nuḥās) will be unleashed, and on that Day no one can defend or help another — the laws of cause and effect that govern this world no longer hold.

The sky torn open (v.37). As the heavens split apart they turn crimson — "like a rose," "like tanned leather," "like molten oil" — a sign that the present world-order has come undone.

No questioning at that station (v.39). On that Day neither human nor jinn is questioned about sin. The six are careful: this does not contradict the verses that say everyone will be questioned, because the Day has many stations — at one, mouths are sealed and limbs testify; at another, faces alone betray the secrets within; at another, questions are indeed asked.

The guilty marked and seized (vv.41–42). The wrongdoers are recognized by their mark — blackened faces and darkened eyes — then seized by the forelocks and the feet and dragged to the Fire.

The Hell they denied (vv.43–44). They are told: this is the Hell you used to deny. They circuit endlessly between its flames and scalding water (ḥamīm) heated to the very utmost.

Two gardens for the God-fearing (v.46). Now the reward: for whoever "feared the standing before his Lord" there are two gardens. Across nearly all six this fear is defined by a saying of Imam al-Ṣādiq — the one who knows God sees him and hears him, so that knowledge holds him back from base deeds.

The gardens described (vv.48–54). The two gardens abound in afnān — read both as "varieties" of bounty and as leafy, supple branches (v.48). In each are two flowing springs (v.50). In each, of every fruit, two kinds — two matching pairs, or one fruit known in this world and one never seen (v.52). The blessed recline on couches whose very linings are of thick silk-brocade (istabraq), with the ripe fruit of both gardens hanging near at hand (v.54). The scholars note the verse names only the lining: if even the underside is brocade, the unseen outer face must be finer still.

Convergence — where the six agree

• All six read "the two weighty ones" as jinn and humankind, and Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān), Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān), the Enlightening Commentary, and the rest tie the name to weight of rank — several citing the Prophet's "two weighty things, the Book of God and my progeny" as a parallel for that honorific sense.
• On v.33 every source that comments glosses sulṭān to include a "conclusive proof," and Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān), and the Enlightening Commentary all read the verse as the impossibility of escaping God's dominion and judgment.
• On the fire of v.35, all four Arabic sources plus both English ones treat shuwāẓ as flame; Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī preserve the same twin gloss of nuḥās (molten copper for torment, or smoke) with the very same lines of old Arabic poetry as evidence.
• On v.39's "no questioning," all six harmonize it the same way — the Day has multiple stations — and Ṭabāṭabāʾī and the Enlightening Commentary both cite the questioning-verses (37:24, 15:92) and the sealed-mouths/speaking-limbs verse as proof.
• On the reward, the felicity of v.46 turns for five of the six on one near-verbatim saying of Imam al-Ṣādiq defining "fearing the standing" as God-consciousness that restrains conduct — and on v.54 they converge that the brocade lining implies a grander unseen outer face, a point Ṭabāṭabāʾī and the Enlightening Commentary credit to Majmaʿ al-Bayān.

Divergence — where they differ

• The real splits run along a single fault line: the exoteric, lexical sources (Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, and largely Ṭabāṭabāʾī) read the plain sense, while the narrational sources al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) and al-Qummī layer an Imāmī reading on top — never contradicting the literal meaning so much as adding to it.
• v.39 — a contested "of you." al-Baḥrānī and al-Qummī transmit a reading inserting minkum ("of you," i.e. the Shīʿa), with al-Baḥrānī carrying a report (through al-Riḍā) that names ʿUthmān as the one who altered the text. Ṭabarsī reports al-Riḍā's barzakh interpretation but keeps the standard text; Ṭūsī and the Enlightening Commentary read v.39 generally with no minkum. Both al-Mīzān's notes and the record itself flag this alteration claim as of contested authenticity.
• vv.41–44 — the Qāʾim and the deniers. al-Baḥrānī uniquely transmits narrations applying "the guilty known by their mark" to the Qāʾim striking down the disbelievers with the sword, and al-Qummī uniquely identifies the deniers with "Zurayq," an Imāmī code-name for an early caliph (a point flagged for review).
• v.33 and v.37 — devotional taʾwīl. al-Baḥrānī alone transmits the scene of the Prophet, ʿAlī, and their followers on pulpits of light with "the good deed" glossed as the walāya of ʿAlī, and the report of the Prophet clothed in a rosy robe at the Resurrection.
• v.46 — where the two gardens are. A genuine split on substance: Ṭabarsī (citing Muqātil) reads them as the Gardens of ʿAdn and Naʿīm; Ṭabāṭabāʾī surveys and rejects several pairings; al-Baḥrānī transmits that the gardens "are four"; and al-Qummī alone gives a this-worldly gloss — "two verdant ones in this world" the believers eat from until the reckoning ends (flagged for review).
• v.33 — a modern reading. The Enlightening Commentary alone suggests the verse "may allude to astronautics," reasoning from the conditional phrasing — a reading Ṭabāṭabāʾī's contextual analysis would resist.

Each scholar's full text is in the source panels below.