Sūrat al-Wāqiʿa · Āyāt 1–26

What the passage says

The sūra opens on the Resurrection itself, named here "the Event" (al-Wāqiʿa): when it comes to pass (v.1), there is no denying that it will fall — its coming is real, with no falsehood in it (v.2). It is an upheaval that lowers some and exalts others (v.3) — abasing the worldly-mighty, raising the worldly-lowly. Then the cosmic terrors: the earth is convulsed with a violent shaking (v.4), the mountains are crushed to bits (v.5) and become scattered dust, like the fine motes seen drifting in a shaft of sunlight (v.6).

With the old order undone, mankind is sorted into three kinds (v.7). The first two are named and then magnified by a wondering question: the People of the Right Hand — and what shall they be! (v.8) — the people of good fortune; and the People of the Left Hand — and what shall they be! (v.9) — the people of wretchedness. The third kind is the Foremost, the Foremost (v.10): those who outran others in faith and good works. These are the ones brought near to God (v.11), lodged in the Gardens of Bliss (v.12) — a great multitude drawn from the earlier nations (v.13) and only a few from this latter community (v.14).

The passage then dwells on the reward of the brought-near. They recline on richly woven couches (v.15), face to face in perfect fellowship (v.16). Immortal serving-youths circle among them (v.17) bearing goblets, ewers, and a cup of clear flowing wine (v.18) that brings neither headache nor loss of reason (v.19). There is fruit of their own choosing (v.20) and the flesh of any fowl they desire (v.21); and wide-eyed houris (v.22), pure as pearls kept safe in the shell (v.23) — all of it a reward for what they used to do (v.24). They hear no idle or sinful talk there (v.25), nothing but the greeting "Peace, Peace" (v.26).

Convergence — where the six agree

• "The Event" is a name for the Resurrection, and its coming is certain. Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān), Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān), and Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān) all treat al-Wāqiʿa as one of the Qurʾān's proper names for the Day, alongside al-Ḥāqqa, al-Qāriʿa, and al-Ghāshiya; the Enlightening Commentary calls the title "a designation of Resurrection whose imminence is prognosticated in the opening verse." Al-Qummī simply glosses it: "the Resurrection — it is real."
• "Lowering, exalting" is the Great Reversal. Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī read it as casting the worldly-mighty into the Fire and raising the worldly-lowly to Paradise, since the Event came about for requital. Ṭabāṭabāʾī widens this to the overturning of the whole visible world-order — hidden secrets laid bare, the chains of secondary causes veiled. Al-Qummī, al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān), and the Enlightening Commentary all anchor it in Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn's saying that the world and the Hereafter are "the two pans of a balance" — it lowers God's enemies into the Fire and raises His friends to Paradise.
• The three classes, and the Foremost as foremost to mercy. All six lay out the sorting. Ṭabarsī and Ṭabāṭabāʾī both argue, on lexical grounds, that maymana derives from yumn (felicity) — its opposite being mashʾama (wretchedness) — and on that basis reject the gloss "the right side because they receive their books in the right hand." On the Foremost, Ṭabāṭabāʾī grounds them in other verses (foremost in good works, hence foremost to forgiveness and mercy), and the surveys in Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, and the Enlightening Commentary list the spread of views — foremost to faith, to the Hijra, to the five prayers, to jihād, to repentance, "to everything God called to" (this last judged the best because it is the most general).
• The reward of the brought-near, term by term. Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī supply the shared lexicon — couches "woven like a doubled coat of mail," the wide-mouthed akwāb and spouted abārīq, the wine that brings "no headache nor loss of reason," the houris "like pearls guarded in the shell." Ṭabāṭabāʾī adds that "nearness" here is rank and honor, not place, since God is not in space.

Divergence — where they differ

• How to handle the ʿAlī / Ahl al-Bayt readings is the one real interpretive split. Al-Baḥrānī foregrounds them through a dense chain of reports — the Prophet's three-fold division of creation placing himself among the Foremost, Gabriel's word "that is ʿAlī and his Shīʿa," ʿAlī as "the foremost of the foremost" — and the Enlightening Commentary carries the same via the long Ḥudhayfa narration, presenting them as "manifest and perfect instances" that "do not restrict the semantic application." Ṭabāṭabāʾī cites these very same narrations but methodologically labels them exemplification (tamthīl/jary), not the literal sense of the verse — the clearest difference of approach in the passage.
• A handful of single-source touches. Al-Baḥrānī alone preserves the "five spirits" anthropology (from al-Ṣādiq and from ʿAlī) and the unusual gloss of v.19 — "they are not driven away" — against the majority's "their reason is not carried off." Ṭabāṭabāʾī alone critiques and rejects the report that v.14 ("a few from the latter") was "abrogated." The Enlightening Commentary alone supplies the devotional register — the merits of reciting the sūra — and the note that fruit is named before fowl because eating fruit before a meal "is far better."

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