6. Sura al-Anam

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

إِنَّ اللّهَ فَالِقُ الْحَبِّ وَالنَّوَى...

6: 95. It is Allah Who causeth the seed-grain and the date-stone to split and sprout.

C918. Another beautiful nature passage, referring to Allah's wonderful artistry in His Creation.

In how few and how simple words, the whole pageant of Creation is placed before us. Beginning from our humble animal needs and dependence on the vegetable world, we are asked to contemplate the interaction of the living and the dead. Here is mystic teaching, referring not only to physical life but to the higher life above the physical plane, -not only to individual life but to the collective life of nations.

Then we take a peep into the daily miracle of morning, noon, and night, and pass on to the stars that guide the distant mariner. We rise still higher to the mystery of the countless individuals from the one human soul, -their sojourn and their destiny. So we get back to the heavens: the description of the luscious fruits which the "gentle rain from heaven" produces, leaves us to contemplate the spiritual fruits which faith will provide for us, with the aid of the showers of God's mercy.

C919. The seed-grain and the date-stone are selected as types in the vegetable kingdom, showing how our physical life depends on it.

The fruits mentioned later (in 6:99) start another allegory which we shall notice later.

Botanists will notice that the seed-grain includes the cereals (such as wheat, barley, rice, millet, etc.) which are monocotyledons, as well as the pulses (such as beans, peas, gram, etc.) and other seeds which are dicotyledons.

These two represent the most important classes of food-grains, while the date-palm a monocotyledon, represents for Arabia both food, fruit, confectionery, thatch and pillars for houses, shady groves in oases, and a standard measure of wealth and well being.

"Split and sprout": both ideas are included in the root falaqa, and a third is expressed by the word "cleave" in the next verse, for the action of evolving day-break from the dark. I might almost have used the word "churn," familiar to students of Hindu lore in the Hindu allegory of the "churning of the ocean." For vegetables, "split and sprout" represents a double process:

- the seed divides, and

- one part shoots up, seeking the light, and forming leaves and the visible parts of the future tree, and the other part digs down into the dark, forming the roots and seeking just that sustenance from the soil, which is adapted for the particular plant.

This is just one small instance of the "Judgement and ordering" of God, referred to in the next verse.

...يُخْرِجُ الْحَيَّ مِنَ الْمَيِّتِ وَمُخْرِجُ الْمَيِّتِ مِنَ الْحَيِّ ...

He causeth the living to issue from the dead, and He is the one to cause the dead to issue from the living.

C920. This does not mean that in physical nature there are no limits between life and non-life, between the organic and the non-organic. In fact physicists are baffled at the barrier between them and frankly confess that they cannot solve the mystery of Life.

If there is such a barrier in physical nature, is it not all the more wonderful that Allah can create Life out of nothing? He has but to say, "Be," and it is. He can bring Life from non-Life and annihilate Life.

But there are two other senses in which we can contemplate the contrast between the living and the dead.

- We have just been speaking of the botanical world. Take it as a whole, and see the contrast between the winter of death, the spring of revivification, the summer of growth, and the autumn of decay, leading back to the death of winter. Here is a cycle of living for dead, and dead from living.

- Take our spiritual life, individual or collective. We rise from the darkness of spiritual nothingness to the light of spiritual life. And if we do not follow the spiritual laws, Allah will take away that life and we shall be again as dead. We may die many deaths. The keys of life and death are in Allah's hands. Neither Life nor Death are fortuitous things. Behind them both is the Cause of Causes, -and only He.

...ذَلِكُمُ اللّهُ فَأَنَّى تُؤْفَكُونَ ﴿٩٥﴾

That is Allah;

then how are ye deluded away from the truth?

Other versions:

6: 95 [al-Anam, Cattle, Mecca 55]

Asad Verily, God is the One who cleaves the grain and the fruit-kernel asunder, bringing forth the living out of that which is dead, and He is the One who brings forth the dead out of that which is alive. This, then, is God: and yet, how perverted are your minds [note 80]!

Yusuf Ali It is Allah Who causeth the seed-grain and the date-stone to split and sprout. He causeth the living to issue from the dead and He is the one to cause the dead to issue from the living. That is Allah; then how are you deluded away from the truth?

Pickthall Lo! Allah (it is) who splitteth the grain of corn and the datestone (for sprouting) . He bringeth forth the living from the dead, and is the bringer forth of the dead from the living. Such is Allah. How then are you perverted?

Transliteration Innalla_ha fa_liqul habbi wan nawa_, yukhrijul hayya minal mayyiti wa mukhrijul mayyiti minal hayy(i), za_likumulla_hu fa anna_ tu'faku_n(a).

taqdirul 'azizil'alim(i).

[[Ruby’s note – Here a universal process is described and a mystery of life and death is hinted. Living things are composed of dead materials such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc. Even though these elements that are dead material integrate to sustain a living entity and when the living thing dies these disintegrates as dead components. This is the mystery of life which science fails to define and pinpoint. A life is not a mere summation of its physical components and the disintegrated material at death is not life but where life harbored. This stupendous on-going phenomenon is succinctly mentioned here for people to ponder.

Failing to note such a phenomenal process of reality as the sign of God is indeed a failure and perversion of thinking. Any wise person would note such a grand phenomenon at any level of knowledge and see the miracle of God taking place all around us on a continuous basis. Something that is happening all the time does not mean that it is devoid of the miracle nature in it. It is the mind which is arrogant and negligent is capable of such ignorance. ]]