50جَنّاتِ عَدنٍ مُفَتَّحَةً لَهُمُ الأَبوابُMuhammad Asadgardens of perpetual bliss,1 with gates wide-open to them,In all the eleven instances in which the noun 'adn occurs in the Qur'an - and of which the present is the oldest - it is used as a qualifying term for the "gardens" (lannat) of paradise. This noun is derived from the verb 'adana, which primarily denotes "he remained [somewhere]" or "he kept (to something]", i.e., permanently: cf, the phrase 'adantu 'l-balad ("I remained for good [or "settled"] in the country"). In Biblical Hebrew - which, after all, is but a very ancient Arabian dialect - the closely related noun 'eden has also the additional connotation of "delight", "pleasure" or "bliss". Hence the combination of the two concepts in my rendering of 'adn as "perpetual bliss". As in many other places in the Qur'an, this bliss is here allegorized - and thus brought closer to man's imagination - by means of descriptions recalling earthly joys.