Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
18 with goblets and ewers
and a cup of a clear wine,1
19 which neither causes them headache
nor stupefaction,
20 and such fruits as they prefer
21 and such flesh of fowls as they desire,
22 and big-eyed houris
23 like guarded pearls,
24 a reward for what they used to do.
25 They will not hear therein
any vain talk or sinful speech,
26 but only the watch word, ‘Peace!’ ‘Peace!’
27 And the People of the Right Hand
— what are the People of the Right Hand?
28 Amid thornless lote trees
29 and clustered spathes 2
30 and extended shade,3
31 and ever-flowing water
32 and abundant fruits,
33 neither inaccessible, nor forbidden,
34 and noble spouses.
35 We have created them with a special creation,
and made them virgins, loving, of a like age,
36 and made them virgins,
37 loving, of a like age,
38 for the People of the Right Hand.
39 A multitude from the former [generations]
1 Or ‘flowing wine.’
2 This is according to the reading wa ṭal‘in manḍūd (instead of wa ṭalḥin manḍūd, meaning ‘and clustered plantains’) narrated from Imam ‘Alī and Imam Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq (‘a) and Ibn ‘Abbās. (Mu‘jam, al-Kashshāf)
3 Or ‘twilight;’ see the note at 25:45.
