Hadith 5426

(1) His statement: “are all among the rivers of Paradise”: These four rivers are considered among the rivers of Paradise due to their sweetness, digestibility, divine blessing, and the honor of prophets drinking from them. This is like Allah’s statement about the dates of Madinah: “They are among the fruits of Paradise.” It is possible that the rivers that are the sources of Paradise’s rivers are named after them to indicate that they are in Paradise like these four rivers in this world, or they share the same names. The commentator said: Al-Qadi said: The four rivers are so called for the sweetness of their water and the abundance of their benefits, as if they were from the rivers of Paradise. It is possible that they are the rivers that are the sources of Paradise’s rivers, named after the greatest, most famous, sweetest, and most beneficial rivers of this world among the Arabs, by way of analogy, to show that they are comparable in Paradise, and that the benefits and delights of this world are samples of what is in the Hereafter, as are its harms and unpleasant things. In Al-Nawawi’s commentary on Muslim, Al-Qadi Iyadh said: Their being from Paradise means that the lands of these rivers are for the believers, and the bodies nourished by their water are destined for Paradise. The sounder view is that they are literally so, having a source from Paradise, as they exist today according to the Ahl as-Sunnah. Muslim narrated in the Book of Faith, in the hadith of the Isra, that the Euphrates and Nile flow from Paradise. In Bukhari, it is from the root of Sidrat al-Muntaha. Ibn Abbas narrated in Ma’alim at-Tanzil that Allah sent these rivers from a single spring in Paradise, from the lowest of its levels, on Gabriel’s wings, entrusted them to the mountains, and made them flow on earth, providing benefits to people, as Allah says: “And We send down water from the sky in measure” [Al-Mu’minun: 18]. When Gog and Magog emerge, Allah sends Gabriel to lift the Qur’an, knowledge, the Black Stone, the Station of Ibrahim, Moses’s ark, and these rivers from the earth, as Allah says: “And indeed, We are able to take it away” [Al-Mu’minun: 18]. (As stated in Al-Mirqat)