Ya-Sin · Makki · ayah 35 of 83

Ya-Sin 36:35

لِيَأْكُلُوا۟ مِن ثَمَرِهِۦ وَمَا عَمِلَتْهُ أَيْدِيهِمْ ۖ أَفَلَا يَشْكُرُونَ

“That they may eat of His fruit.[1266] And their hands have not produced it,[1267] so will they not be grateful?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Your hands hold fruit they both did and did not make, and the ayah asks why that has not yet shown on you as thanks.

A reflection

Whose fruit is it?

There is a farm shop on a country road with a painted sign over the door: Grown by us since 1952. Inside, the apples are polished and the honey is labelled with the family name. It is honest work, done for seventy years. And the sign is true, in the way such signs are true.

This ayah quietly asks a question about that sign. That they may eat of its fruit. Whose fruit? The commentators take the pronoun several ways. The best-known view, one of them says, is that it refers to Allah. They eat of His fruit.

He draws out a fine point from that reading. Think of everything a person might name as the cause of fruit. The trees are planted, the rivers run, the gardener prunes and waters. After every one of those causes is in place, the fruit still does not exist unless Allah creates it. So, he says, after all that people suppose to be its causes, it is His fruit.

That is where pride takes a hit. We are fond of the word "self-made". We speak of what we have built, earned and produced. Some of that is real. But trace any good thing in your life back far enough. You reach a point where your hands were not involved: the seed, the rain, the life in the cell, the mind that had the idea.

The ayah does not tell the farmer to take down his sign. It simply invites him to read it with an extra line beneath it, in smaller letters. Grown by us. Made by Him.

The ego wants to own the fruit outright. Humility is not denying the work. It is knowing whose fruit you are holding while you do it.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.