36. Surah Ya Sin (O Thou Human Being)

Mecca 41

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

الَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُم مِّنَ الشَّجَرِ الْأَخْضَرِ نَارًا...   

36: 80.  "The same Who produces for you fire out of the green tree,

C4026. Even older and more primitive than the method of striking fire against steel and flint is the method of using twigs of trees for the purpose.

In the Encyclopedia of Britannica, 14th edition. 9:262, will be found a picture of British Guiana boys making a fire by rotating a stick in a round hole in a piece of wood lying on the ground.

The Arab method was to use a wooden instrument called the Zinad. It consisted of two pieces to be rubbed together. The upper one was called the 'Afar or Zand, and the lower the Markh.

The markh is a twig from a kind of spreading tree, the Cynanchuin viminale, of which the branches are bare, without leaves or thorns. When they are tangled together, and a wind blows, they get ignited and strike fire (Lane's Arabic Lexicon).

In modern Arabic Zand is by analogy applied to the flint pierce used for striking fire with steel.

... فَإِذَا أَنتُم مِّنْهُ تُوقِدُونَ ﴿٨٠﴾

when behold! ye kindle therewith (your own fires)!

Asad’s Version:

(36:80) He who produces for you fire out of the green tree, so that, lo! you kindle [your fires] therewith." 47

Yuksel’s Version:

36:80 The One who produces for you a fire from the green tree, which you burn.

[[Yuksel’s note -

036:079-80 After reminding us that He knows all kinds of creation, God gives us the recreation of energy stored in plants through photosynthesis as fossil fuels such as coal or petroleum. Indeed, conservation of energy and its transformation from physical into chemical form and vice versa, is a good example of resurrection. See 4:82.]]