Yāsīn 36:34-35

Wa jaʿalnā fīhā jannātin min nakhīlin wa aʿnābin wa fajjarnā fīhā mina'l-ʿuyūn · Li-yaʾkulū min thamarihī wa mā ʿamilat-hu aydīhim, a-fa-lā yashkurūn

"In it We made gardens of palms and vines, and We made springs gush forth in it — that they might eat of its fruit. Their hands did not make it. Will they not then give thanks?"

The sense of the root is to cover — the verb janna means "it covered, it hid"; janīn (covered in the womb), jinn (what is not seen), junna (a shield) and majnūn are from the same root. The root has been analysed in a great many places in the index (al-Wāqiʿa, Qāf, al-Jinn and others); I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is the worldly use of the word. In saying "garden" the sūra here means not the garden of the hereafter but a garden in this world — the place where trees cover the ground. And in the fifty-fifth verse the same word will be used of the hereafter (aṣḥāba'l-janna). The sūra uses the word in both senses; this is a verifiable datum and is the word's natural breadth in Arabic.

Palms and vines are named together, as this pair, many times in the Qurʾān. Both are plants that grow in the surroundings of the one addressed, that require labour, and that yield seasonal produce.

And one link within the sūra must be recorded: nakhīl (palms) occurs here; in the thirty-ninth verse the dried branch of the same tree will be likened to the crescent moon — ka'l-ʿurjūni'l-qadīm, the old, dried stalk of a date cluster. Both occurrences can be verified: the same tree is named once with its fruit and once with its dried branch. I record this as an observation; I do not claim that the sūra makes the connection deliberately.

The concrete sense: to split, to split open and make flow. Fajara'l-māʾa — he split the water open, made it gush. And from the same root:

• فَجْر — dawn: the light that splits the darkness of the night.
• فُجُور — the splitting of a moral limit.

The root was treated in al-Fajr, al-Shams and al-Infiṭār; I do not repeat it here.

What belongs here is the pattern. Fajjarnā — Form II, and this form announces multiplicity and intensity. Not a single splitting, that is, but in many places. And the object is mina'l-ʿuyūn — with the partitive min: "some of the springs", that is, an unstated number.

عُيُون — the plural of ʿayn. And the doubleness of the word is worth recording: in Arabic ʿayn is both "eye" and "spring". The lexicographers explain the connection by the picture of water flowing. Since this section of the sūra is built upon sight the word is striking — but I make no point of it, I record the word's doubleness.

The meaning of the sentence again depends on the particle mā, and the exegetes differ:

Both readings are found in the classical commentaries. I do not impose a preference.

The upshot of the two readings differs, and this must be recorded:

• On the first reading the verse puts human labour outside the proof: what you eat is not of your making.
• On the second reading the verse takes human labour into the favour: both what comes of itself and what comes by the work of the hand.

One datum internal to the text can be recorded, and this is not to take a side in the disagreement: the same construction returns in the seventy-first verse — mimmā ʿamilat aydīnā ("of what Our hands have made"). The same verb and the same noun in both verses, but two different hands.

This repetition is a countable datum. And the caveat of transcendence entered in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) at 40/7 in the discussion of the Throne holds here too: expressions such as aydīnā cannot be understood as ascribing a limb or a body to God; two attitudes are transmitted in the classical commentaries (tafwīḍ and taʾwīl). I transmit both; I do not impose a preference.

This question occurs twice in the sūra, both times after an enumeration of favours:

Both occurrences can be verified. And there are two more questions in the same pattern in the sūra, but with different verbs: a-fa-lam takūnū taʿqilūn (62) and a-fa-lā yaʿqilūn (68).

The distribution of the four questions shows a design, and I record this as an observation:

The sūra, that is, ties two different verbs to two different subjects: before a favour, thanks; before a fact, reason. This is an interpretation; its ground is where the four questions stand.

ش-ك-ر — the lexicographers dwell on the concrete sense of the root: shakarati'd-dābba — the animal grew fat on little fodder. In the root, that is, there is "making a little look like much, giving back more than was received". From here, thanksgiving: the making visible of what has been received.