Yā Sīn

وَجَعَلْنَا فِيهَا جَنَّاتٍ مِن نَّخِيلٍ وَأَعْنَابٍ وَفَجَّرْنَا فِيهَا مِنَ الْعُيُونِ

لِيَأْكُلُوا مِن ثَمَرِهِ وَمَا عَمِلَتْهُ أَيْدِيهِمْ أَفَلاَ يَشْكُرُونَ

34. “And We made therein gardens of date-palms and grape vines, and We caused springs to flow forth in it,”
35. “That they may eat of its fruit, and of what their hands have produced; will they not then be grateful?”

In man’s nutrition, cereals and grains have the first function and then there are fruits. The man’s duty for bounties is cognition and thanks giving. Allah gives life to the dead land and makes plants and fruits available that man eats them and thanks. This holy verse refers to the life of dead lands. It says:

In the previous verse the words were about grains, but here the strengthening and nutritive fruits, two outstanding samples of them are date and grapes each of which is counted a complete food. As we have formerly said in detail, too, the studies of scholars show that these two fruits, in particular, have kinds of necessary vitamins and different vital materials for man’s body. Moreover, these two useful fruits can be kept and used in different forms during the year for eating.

The Arabic term /’a‘nab/ is the plural form of /‘inab/ and the term /naxil/, as Raqib says in Mufradat, is the plural form of /naxl/ but with this difference that the term /‘inab/ is usually called to ‘grapes’ itself and it is rarely used for a vine, while the word /naxl/ is a name for the tree, the fruit of which is fresh date and is called /tamr/ (fresh but dry date). Some believe that this difference of meaning that in one place the Qur’an says: ‘Tree’ and in another place it says: ‘fruit’ is for the sake that date-palm, as it is popular, all its parts are useful: its trunk, its branches and leaves are totally used differently, and its fruit is superior to all of these things, while vine is usually planted for its fruit and its trunk and branches have not much usage.

And that both of them are mentioned in plural form, this may refer to the different kinds of these two fruits, because each of them is of more than 10 kinds, with different specialties and suitable for everybody and for various tastes. This point is also noteworthy that in the previous verse the meaning was referred to giving life to the dead lands, which is usually accompanied in the Qur’an with the statement of the descent of rain, but in this verse the words are about the flowing springs, because for a great deal of agriculture only rainwater is not enough and fruit trees are usually in need of flowing water, too.

The Arabic term /fajjarna/ is derived from /tafjir/which here means: ‘to create a vast gap’, and since springs are gushed forth by splitting the land, this meaning has been used for coming out spring-water from the land. The next holy verse states the aim of the creation of these fruitful trees as such:

Yes, the fruits which appeared on the branches of trees, without being in need of any changes, are eatable when they are picked up from the trees; and this shows the utmost grace and greatness of Allah unto humankind. He has packed this delicious prepared food as well that it can be maintained for a long time without that it loses its nutritiousness. This is different from the foods man makes from natural god-given stuffs that they often become putrid quickly.

There is another commentary upon this verse which is noteworthy, too. It says: the Qur’an intends to point both to the fruits that are used without any change, and to the kinds of different foods which are obtained with an action on these fruits. (In the first commentary the Arabic word /ma/ in the Qur’anic sentence is a negative sign, while in the second one is a ‘relative pronoun’. However, the aim is that this sense of gratitude and thanksgiving of men may be moved so that, by the way of thanksgiving they can step in the stage of knowing Allah, in which thanking the Benefactor is the first step of knowing Allah (s.w.t.).