Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 12 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:12

وَٱلْحَبُّ ذُو ٱلْعَصْفِ وَٱلرَّيْحَانُ

“And grain having husks and scented plants.”

Saheeh International

Essence

One stalk feeds the man, the beast and the breath: grain for bread, straw for the animals, and a scent the wind carries.

A reflection

'I put food on this table'

At Sunday lunch, a father says it whenever someone complains about the cooking. I put food on this table. He means it as a fact, and in a narrow sense it is one. He works long hours, and the money is his.

Follow the meal back, though, and the sentence thins out. The money bought flour. The flour came from grain. The grain came from a field, and the field from a seed he never planted, in soil he never made, under rain he never sent. This ayah stands at that far end of the chain: and the grain with its husk, and fragrant plants.

One commentary calls grain the most complete of these favours. It suits the human constitution, and it was created in every land, while the palm was given chiefly to hot countries. Bread is the nearest thing the earth has to a universal language.

Pride in provision is one of the most respectable kinds of pride. It is tied to love and sacrifice, and nobody wants to deny a parent the dignity of work. But the ayah moves the subject of the sentence. Not 'I put food on this table'. He put grain in the earth, and let me carry some of it home.

That is not a humiliation. It is a relief. The father who knows he is a carrier, not a source, can stop measuring his worth in loaves. The One who sent the grain gains nothing by being thanked (35:15). The father gains a truer sentence to say at lunch: we were provided for, and I was the one who brought it in.

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.