Maryam

جَنَّاتِ عَدْنٍ الَّتِي وَعَدَ الرَّحْمنُ عِبَادَهُ بِالْغَيْبِ إِنَّهُ كَانَ وَعْدُهُ مَأْتِيّاً

لاَّ يَسْمَعُونَ فِيهَا لَغْواً إِلاَّ سَلاَماً وَلَهُمْ رِزْقُهُمْ فِيهَا بُكْرَةً وَعَشِيّاً

تِلْكَ الْجَنَّةُ الَّتِي نُورِثُ مِنْ عِبَادِنَا مَن كَانَ تَقِيّاً

61. “Gardens of Eternity that the Beneficent (Allah) has promised to His servants in the Unseen; verily His promise shall come to pass.”
62. “There they shall hear no idle talk, but only ‘Peace’. Therein they shall have their sustenance (every) morning and evening.”
63. “This is the Garden (Paradise) which We shall cause those of Our servants to inherit who are pious.”

Through the preceding verse the word /jannat/ (garden, Paradise) was used in its singular form:

while in this verse the plural form of the term, /jannat/, is used:

This shows that the garden of the people of Heaven is a collection of numerous gardens. This sense may be for the sake that every one of the people of Heaven has four gardens. This matter has been pointed out in Surah Ar-Rahman, No. 55, verses 46 and 62, where the Qur’an says:

These gardens, with together, are four gardens, the latter couple of which are either nearer, or have a lower level than the former couple; or because of the different ranks of the people of Heaven the kind of gardens are different.²⁸ The Qur’an has repeatedly referred to the fulfillment of Allah’s promise, and among them, it has said:

The phrase upon Paradise, saying that there is no idle talk therein, refers both to our life today that we should avoid idle talks, and to the fact that there will be therein nothing of the idle talks of disbelievers and the vain speech by which they used to hurt the believers in the world. In the Qur’anic phrase which says:

the Qur’an points to both piety, which is the key of Paradise, and contains the sense of ‘inheritance’ which hints to a wealth and bounty gained with no pain and trouble. It is true that piety is the key of Paradise, but those plenty of rewards are the inheritance of Allah unto us for our deeds. In fact, our rewards are some heritage which we gain from the side of Allah without any pain. There is an Islamic tradition which says: every person has a proper place both in Paradise and Hell. If the person enters Paradise, his place in Hell will be inherited by same Hellish people. And if he enters Hell, his place in Paradise will be inherited by the people of Paradise.³⁰

In this holy verse, the Qur’an describes Heaven and its bounties. At first, it qualifies the promised Paradise where there are some eternal gardens which Allah has promised to His servants. They have not seen them, but they believe in them. In other words, the purpose of ‘in the Unseen’ is that neither any eyes have seen that Paradise nor any ears have heard of its description. The verse says:

After that, the Qur’an has pointed to one of the greatest bounties in Heaven. It says:

In Heaven, they hear neither any falsehood, nor any abuse, slander, sarcasm, and any ridicule, nor even a vain word; and there is no statement there, but “peace”, a greeting which is the sign of a secure place. It is a gathering place full of sincerity, purity, piety, peace and calmness. The holy verse continues saying:

And, next to mentioning this bounty, the Qur’an points to another bounty, when it says:

An Islamic tradition indicates that a person went to Imam Sadiq (as) and complained of his stomachache. The Imam (as) advised him to eat food two times a day: morning and evening, and to avoid eating food between them, which might cause the body to become rotten. Then he (as) recited this verse:

After a description about Paradise and its material and spiritual bounties, the Qur’an, in a short sentence, introduce the people of Paradise. It says:

Thus, the key of the door of Paradise, with all those bounties, is nothing but ‘piety’.