Al-Muminoon (The Believers)

19. “Then We produced for you therewith gardens of date palms and grapes, wherein is much fruit for you and whereof you eat;”

Plants and trees are created for human use. Among the fruits, some of them, like the date and the grape are special. The Wise Allah, of cause, by providing us with fruits from the soil, has supplied man with his material needs.

Therefore, after mentioning rain, this abundant blessing, the Qur’an continues by enumerating the results of rainfall in this noble verse:

“Then We produced for you therewith gardens of date palms and grapes, wherein is much fruit for you and whereof you eat;”

Dates and grapes are not the only products of cultivation for there are many other fruits and plants cultivated in gardens, but they are among the most valuable of them.

The Qur’anic sentence /wa minha ta’kulun/,

(“...and whereof you eat;”),

probably indicates that the products of these gardens include fruits that are both edible, as a part of it, and other things that are inedible.

Plants (including palm gardens) have often manifold uses for human life; their leaves are used to make carpets and sometimes garments, or used for forage, their wood is used to build houses and for fuel, and the leaves, fruits and the roots of some of trees are used to make medicines.

Fakhr-i-Razi has said in his commentary that the probable purpose of the sentence ‘minha ta’kulun’ is that our lives and provisions are determined by these gardens, just as we say that such and such person lives by doing such and such a job.

It is also worth mentioning that in the verses above, the origin of man’s life is the sperm drop and the origin of plant life is rain. In fact, these two distinguished examples of life are both originated from water. Allah’s law is one and covers all things.