[And cups were of crystal, crystal made of silver]. The [akwab] (cups) are the drinking vessels, the singular of which is [kub]; it is the round one with a short neck and a short handle. The meaning of [kannat qawarira qawarira min fiddah] is: there combines in them the clarity of crystal with the whiteness of silver. This is because every people has crystal [derived] from the soil of their land, and the soil of Paradise is silver; thus, they are crystals of silver from which they drink, [whereby] the drink is seen from behind the walls of the crystals, and this does not occur in the silver of the world.
Muhammad said: The people of the Hijaz and the people of Kufa read it [qawariran qawariran] with the retention of the alif and the tanwin, as mentioned by Abu 'Ubayd. He said: Hamza would drop the alif from them, and they would not be declined (ghayr musarrif). Al-Zajjaj mentioned that the preference among the grammarians is for it to be read without declension, and he said: And whoever reads it...