سَابِقُوا إِلَىٰ مَغْفِرَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا كَعَرْضِ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأَرْضِ أُعِدَّتْ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ فَضْلُ اللَّهِ يُؤْتِيهِ مَن يَشَاءُ ۚ وَاللَّهُ ذُو الْفَضْلِ الْعَظِيمِ (21)
(57:21) So vie with one another *37 in seeking to attain your Lord's forgiveness and a Garden whose width is as the width of the heaven and the earth, *38 one which has been prepared for those who believe in Allah and His Messengers. That is Allah's bounty which He bestows upon those whom He pleases. Allah is the Lord of abounding bounty.
*37) Musabagat (from which sabiqu of the original is derived) means to compete and vie with each other in order to excel. The meaning is: "Give up your rivalries with one another for amassing wealth, and pleasures and benefits, of the world and instead make the forgiveness of your Lord and Paradise the object of your struggle and rivalries.'
*38) Some commentators have taken the word ard in 'arduha ka- 'ard-is- sama '-I wal-ard in the sense of breadth, but actually this word has been used here in the meaning of spaciousness and extensiveness. In Arabic the word ard is not only used for breadth, as a counterpart of length, but also for spaciousness, as it has been used in Ha Mim As-Sajdah: 51: fa-dhu du'a in 'arid: "Then he is full of wordy supplications." Besides, one should also understand that the object here is not to foretell the area or extent of Paradise, but to give an idea of its vastness and extensiveness. Here its vastness has been described as the vastness of the heaven and earth, and in Surah . AI-'Imran it has been said: "Hasten to follow the path that leads to your Lord's forgiveness and to Paradise whose vastness is that of the universe, which has been prepared for the righteous "' (v. 133) When both these verses are read together, one gets the idea that the; gardens and palaces man will receive in Paradise will only serve as his dwelling-place t but the entire universe will be his home He will not be restricted to one place as be is in this world, where just for reaching the Moon, his nearest neighbour in space, he has had to struggle hard for years and expend excessive resources only to overcome the difficulties of a short journeny. There the whole universe will be accessible to him: he will be able to see whatever he would desire from his station and be able to visit whichever place he would like easily.