Ar-Raḥmān is the 55th Chapter of the Qur'an with 78 verses. The title of the surah Rahmaan, appears in verse 1, means "The Most Beneficent". The divine appellation "ar-Rahman" also appears in the opening formula which precedes every sura except Sura 9. English translations of the sura’s title include "The Most Gracious", "The All Merciful", "The Lord of Mercy", "The Beneficent", and "The Mercy-Giving". In the fourth century CE south Arabian pagan inscriptions started to be replaced by monotheistic expressions, using the term rahmān. There is disagreement disagreed about whether Ar-Rahman ought to be categorized with suras of the Makkah or Madinah period. Theodor Nöldeke and Carl Ernst have categorized it among the suras of the early Makkah period, but Abdel Haleem has categorized it in his translation as Madinian, although most Muslim scholars place Sūrat ar-Rahman in the Meccan period. Theodor Nöldeke, counted this Surah towards the early Meccan Surahs. According to the traditional Egyptian chronology, Ar-Rahman was the 97th sura revealed. Nöldeke places it earlier, at 43, while Ernst suggests that Sura 55 was the fifth sura revealed.
Structure
Ar-Rahman is composed entirely in saj’, the rhymed, accent-based prose characteristic of early Arabic poetry. The most notable structural feature of Ar-Rahman is the refrain "Which, then, of your Lord’s blessings do you both deny?", which is repeated 31 times in the 78 verses. Chapter 55 is composed of 26 couplets, 4 tercets, and an introductory stanza of 13 verses all ending with this refrain. The final couplet is followed by a blessing of God’s name. Thematically, Ar-Rahman can be divided into roughly three units.
Verses 1-30 expound upon natural displays of Allah’s creative power and mercy in showering those who inhabit the earth with blessings.
Verses 31-45 describe the final judgment and the terrible punishment that will be inflicted upon sinners.
Verses 46-78, by contrast, detail the delights that await the pious in paradise.
Content
One of the chapter's main aims is to chastise mankind and jinn for their lack of gratitude towards God. Verses 1-30 describe some of the resources that God has provided out of clay and smokeless fire, and set down under a sky illuminated by the twin risings of the sun and moon. Verses 1-4 recount that God taught mankind how to communicate and even gave him the Qur'an to guide him on the path to righteousness. The refrain, "Which, then, of your Lord’s blessings do you both deny?", chastises for failing to acknowledge their indebtedness to God. The punishment that awaits the ungrateful is described in verses 35-45. For the remainder of the chapter, the delights of the gardens of paradise are lyrically described, punctuated throughout by the refrain. There are . The surah also exemplifies the Qur'an’s tendency to be self-referential and self-validating, as when in verse 2 it emphasizes the fact that Allah taught the Qur'an to man out of mercy. In terms of theological developments, Ar-Rahman introduces a three-tiered classification of men and jinn:
This division is echoed in the following chapter. The sura is dominated stylistically by pairs. To begin with, it is addressed to a dual audience of mankind and jinn: in Haleem’s translation of the refrain "Which, then, of your Lord’s blessings do you both deny?", "both" is understood to refer to men and jinn. Natural phenomena are also referred to in pairs: for example, "the sun and the moon", "the stars and the trees", "the two risings and the two settings ", and "the two bodies of water". In addition, paradise is described as consisting of two double gardens, each of which contain a pair of springs and fruit in pairs.
Verses
Q55:70-77 Houri
Muhammad Asad asserts that the "noun hur - rendered as 'companions pure' - is a plural of both ahwar and hawra', either of which describes a person distinguished by hawar', which latter term primarily denotes 'intense whiteness of the eyeballs and lustrous black of the iris'. Asad as well as Yusuf Ali & Pickthall translate this verse as: According to Ibn Kathir, the believer will be given a tent 60 miles wide, made of pearl, such that his wives will not see each other. The believer will visit them all. The Enlightening Commentary into the Light of the Holy Qur'an says that they are good and righteous virgins and are intended to have intercourse only with their husbands.
Hadith
Owing, perhaps, to the sura’s poetic beauty, it is often regarded as the 'beauty of the Quran', in accordance with a hadith: Abdullah ibn Mas'ud reported that Muhammad said, "Everything has an adornment, and the adornment of the Qur'an is Surah ar Rahman" .
