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*Surah Al-Anaam, Verse 95:*
إِنَّ اللَّهَ فَالِقُ الْحَبِّ وَالنَّوَىٰ يُخْرِجُ الْحَيَّ مِنَ الْمَيِّتِ وَمُخْرِجُ الْمَيِّتِ مِنَ الْحَيِّ ذَٰلِكُمُ اللَّهُ فَأَنَّىٰ تُؤْفَكُونَ
Verily! It is Allah Who causes the seed-grain and the fruit-stone (like date-stone, etc.) to split and sprout. He brings forth the living from the dead, and it is He Who brings forth the dead from the living. Such is Allah, then how are you deluded away from the truth?
#COMMENTARY
Another beautiful nature passage, referring to ALLĀH'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 a 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 ALLĀH'S mercy.
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 chapter vi, verse 99) start another allegory which we shall notice later. Botanist 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 "falaq", and a third is expressed by the word "cleave" in the next verse for the action of evolving day-break from the dark. For vegetables, "split and sprout" represents a double process:
1. The seed divides, and
2. 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 ALLĀH, referred to in the next verse.
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 ALLĀH 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.
1. We have just been speaking of the botanical world. Take it as a whole, and see the contrast between the winter of death 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 from dead, and dead from living.
2. Take our spiritual life, individual life 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, ALLĀH 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 ALLĀH'S hands. Neither Life nor Death are fortuitous things. Behind them both is ALLĀH and only He.
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*Surah Al-Anaam, Verse 96:*
فَالِقُ الْإِصْبَاحِ وَجَعَلَ اللَّيْلَ سَكَنًا وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ حُسْبَانًا ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ
(He is the) Cleaver of the daybreak. He has appointed the night for resting, and the sun and the moon for reckoning. Such is the measuring of the All-Mighty, the All-Knowing.
#COMMENTARY
The night, the day, the sun, the moon, _ the great astronomical universe of ALLĀH (Sub-haanahu wata'aala). How far, and yet how near to us! ALLĀH'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" Taqdīr: compared chapter vi, verse 91 and chapter iv, verse 149.
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