What are the two further gardens of paradise in Surah Ar-Rahman?

They are the gardens of those who are so close to God that He Himself is their reward. One of these gardens they find already in this life in God's pleasure, the other when God calls them into His Garden after death.

Surah Ar-Rahman first speaks of two gardens for the one who fears standing before his Lord. A righteous person experiences one garden already in this life and receives the other in the hereafter. Then it says that besides these two there are two other gardens.

These gardens belong to people whose nearness to God goes far beyond the ordinary. From the outside, all believers look alike. They pray, fast in Ramadan and give Zakat. But that is only the outward form. Inside, every person's prayer is different, and so are his fasting and his giving. It depends on the devotion and sincerity with which he does it, and how fully he honours the Unity of God in it.

Those who come closest to God in the end no longer ask for any reward. God Himself becomes their reward. That is why their paradise has an entirely different meaning. Such people seek nothing but God's pleasure throughout their lives. They are pleased with God, and God is pleased with them.

The verses above describe what happens when their time comes. God addresses them as a soul that has found perfect peace. He calls it back to its Lord, well pleased with Him and He well pleased with it. Then He invites it to enter among His servants and to enter His Garden. It is God's own Garden.

So here too there are two gardens. One these people already live on earth, because inwardly they are at home in another world. The other God promises them for the future. How high they rise, ordinary people can hardly measure.

10 von 10 heute frei