Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 29 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:29

وَطَلْحٍ مَّنضُودٍ

“And [banana] trees layered [with fruit]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The second tree is stacked with fruit from the root up, so that no bare trunk shows, and even its name is disputed.

A reflection

Nobody is quite sure which tree this is

Take the same fruit to three villages a day apart and you may get three names for it. Local names are older than books, and they do not reconcile themselves for anybody's convenience.

This ayah has that problem, and the commentaries are honest about it.

Most of them say ṭalḥ is the banana tree. The majority of the commentators are named for that reading. One adds the detail that settles where it comes from: the people of Yemen call the banana ṭalḥ. One early authority says the fruit is sweeter than honey.

Others disagree. Two grammarians say it is a great tree with thorns. One early authority says plainly that it is not a banana but a tree with cool, moist shade. The lexicons back the second reading. The ṭalḥ is the umm ghaylān, the greatest of the thorn trees. Tall, deep green, sweet-smelling blossom, and the most gum.

And one grammarian offers a reconciliation: it may be in the Garden with its thorn removed, exactly like the lote tree of the previous ayah.

So the sources carry a live disagreement about a word in a description of Paradise, and none of them pretends otherwise.

That is worth noticing in itself, because it is not how religious literature usually behaves. There was no pressure to tidy it. The readings are set down beside each other, attributed, with the reasons.

And it tells you something about what certainty is for. The species is uncertain and the point is not. Whatever the tree is, it is manḍūd, and the next word is where the ayah actually lives.

One further reading in the lexicons makes the picture larger either way. The root has a second origin: exhaustion, a camel worn out by travel, and ṭalāḥ for a man gone bad. The same letters give the greatest shade tree and the state of being spent.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.