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?
فَالِقُ
الإِصْبَاحِ
وَجَعَلَ
اللَّيْلَ
سَكَنًا
وَالشَّمْسَ
وَالْقَمَرَ
حُسْبَانًا...
6: 96. He it is that cleaveth the daybreak (from the dark):
He makes the night for rest and tranquility, and the sun and moon for the reckoning (of time):
...ذَلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ ﴿٩٦﴾
such is the judgment and ordering of (Him), the Exalted in Power, the Omniscient.
C921. The night, the day, the sun, the moon, -the great astronomical universe of Allah. How far, and yet how near to us!
Allah's universe is boundless, and we can barely comprehend even its relations to us. But this last we must try to do if we want to be numbered with "the people who know".
Taqdir: Cf. 6:91 and n. 909, and 4:149 and n. 655.
وَهُوَ
الَّذِي
جَعَلَ
لَكُمُ
النُّجُومَ
لِتَهْتَدُواْ
بِهَا
فِي
ظُلُمَاتِ
الْبَرِّ
وَالْبَحْرِ...
6: 97. It is He Who maketh the stars (as beacons) for you, that ye may guide yourselves, with their help, through the dark spaces of land and sea:
C922. See the last note.
At sea, or in the deserts or forests, or "in fairy scenes forlorn," -whenever we sweep over wide spaces, it is the stars that act as our guides, just as the sun and moon have already been mentioned as our measures of time
...قَدْ فَصَّلْنَا الآيَاتِ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْلَمُونَ ﴿٩٧﴾
We detail Our Signs for people who know.
Asad’s Version:
6: 95 Verily, God is the One who cleaves the grain and the fruit-kernal 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! Asad, see note 80.
6: 96 [He is ] the One who causes the dawn to break; an He has made the night to be [a source of ] stillness, and the sun and the moor to run their appointed courses: [all ] this is laid down by the will of the Almighty, the all-Knowing.
6: 97 And He it is who has set up for you the stars so that you might be guided by them in the midst of the deep darkness of land and sea: clearly, indeed, have We spelled out these messages unto people of [innate] knowledge!
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13. Surah Ar Ra'd
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
وَهُوَ
الَّذِي مَدَّ
الأَرْضَ وَجَعَلَ
فِيهَا رَوَاسِيَ
وَأَنْهَارًا...
3. And it is He Who spread out the earth, and set thereon mountains standing firm, and (flowing) rivers:
...وَمِن كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ جَعَلَ فِيهَا زَوْجَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ...
and fruit of every kind He made in pairs, two and two:
C1804. I think that this refers to sex in plants, and I see M Pickthalls has translated accordingly.
Plants like animals have their reproductive apparatus, -male stamens and female pistils. In most cases the same flower combines both stamens and pistils, but in some cases these organs are specialized in separate flowers, and in some cases, even in separate trees. The date-palm of Arabia and the Papaya of India, are instances of fruit trees which are unisexual.
...يُغْشِي اللَّيْلَ النَّهَارَ...
He draweth the Night as a veil o'er the Day.
C1805. Cf. 7:54 and n. 1032. The whole passage there may be compared with the whole passage here.
Both their similarity and their variation show how closely reasoned each argument is, with expressions exactly appropriate to each occasion.
...إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ ﴿٣﴾
Behold, verily in these things there are Signs for those who consider!
Pickthall’s Version:
13: 3
Pickthall And He it is who spread out the earth and placed therein firm hills and flowing streams, and of all fruits be placed therein two spouses (male and female). He covereth the night with the day. Lo! herein verily are portents for people who take thought.
Transliteration Wa huwal lazi maddal arda wa ja'ala fiha_ rawa_siya wa anha_ra_(n), wa min kullis samara_ti ja'ala fiha_ zaujaini-snaini yugsyil lailan naha_r(a), inna fi za_lika la a_ya_til liqaumiy yatafakkaru_n(a).