al-Wāqi‘ah

لأِصْحَابِ الْيَمِينِ

ثُلَّةٌ مِّنَ الْأوَّلِينَ

وَثُلَّةٌ مِّنَ الْآخِرِينَ

38. All these are for the people on the Right Hand.

39. A multitude of those [on the Right Hand] shall be from former nations.

40. And a multitude of those [on the Right Hand] shall be from the later generations.

All these Blessings are in store for the people on the Right Hand who are righteous good-doing believers. Since the records of their deeds shall be given to their right hands and they shall be called the fortunate and the happy, they are designated as the people on the Right Hand. It is worthy of note that the state of those nearest to Divine Threshold may not be compared to that of the people of the Right Hand, because the former abide within the proximity of God Almighty whereas the latter dwell in the affluence of Blessings.

The Arabic word thulla in the third and the fourth blessed Verses in question originally denotes a piece of wool, though it connotes large number and multitude. Qur’anic exegetes differ as to the contextual meanings of "a multitude from former nations" and "a multitude from the later generations. The majority of the exegetes, based on the contents of certain traditions, maintain that

"former nations"

and

"later generations"

both refer to those nations living before the Noble Prophet's (S) community. However, some Qur’anic exegetes hold that the former designates pre-Islamic nations and the latter refers to the community of the Noble Prophet of Islam (S) whose population is twice the former.