سُبْحَانَ ٱللَّٰهِ
Holy Qur'an
Al-Qur'an
Kids Qur'an
I.e., two kinds of paradise, to be experienced simultaneously. Various interpretations are advanced on this score by the classical commentators: e.g., "a paradise for their doing of good deeds, and another paradise for their avoidance of sins" (Zamakhshari); or a paradise that "will comprise both spiritual and physical joys, [so that it will seem] as if it were two paradises" (Razi). Finally, one might conclude that the pointed reference to the "two gardens" of paradise contains - like the preceding reference to the sinners' "wandering between hell and burning despair" - a pointed allusion to the allegorical character of all descriptions of the life to come, as well as to the inexpressible intensity (or multiplication) of all imaginable and unimaginable sensations in that afterlife. The subsequent descriptions of the joys of paradise must be understood in the same symbolic light.
The reference to the Punishment of Sin having been dismissed in a few short lines, we now come to a description of the state of the Blessed.
Here two Gardens are mentioned, and indeed four, counting the other two mentioned in lv. 62-76. Opinions are divided about this, but the best opinion is that the two mentioned in verses 46-61 are for the degree of those Nearest to Allah (Muqarrabun), and those in verses 62-76 for the Companions of the Right Hand: Why two for each? The Duality is to express variety, and the whole scheme of the Sura runs in twos. There will be no dulness of uniformity: as our minds can conceive it now, there will be freshness in change, but it will be from Bliss to Bliss, and there will be Unity.