al-Raḥmān

وَالنَّجْمُ وَالشَّجَرُ يَسْجُدَانِ

6. And the plants and the trees both prostrate themselves to Him.

According to Raghib’s Mufradat, the Arabic word najm is applied to "star" and "stemless plant." The word originally denotes "rise," and the designation najm is owing to its "rise." It is common knowledge that all the food used by mankind originally derives from plants, some of which are directly consumed by man and some are used to feed those animals constituting human dietary ingredients. It is applied to sea animals, since they feed on minute plants growing in millions throughout water under sun light floating in between waves.

Thus the word najm is applied to small, creeping plants like pumpkin and cucumber and the word shajar designates types of plants with stems, stalks, and trunks, like crops and fruit bearing trees. The Arabic verbal form yasjudan; ("the two prostrate themselves") connotes unconditional submission against the rules of creation in vein with human benefits, a Divinely appointed fixed course which they follow without any alteration. It also alludes to their monotheistic secrets since each leaf or seed contain wondrous Signs of Divine Greatness and Omniscience;

("Each leaf is a book of Divine Omniscience").

Some also maintain that the Arabic word najm may connote stars, but the aforesaid exegesis is more consistent with the contextual meaning of the blessed Verse.