Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 32 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:32

وَفَـٰكِهَةٍ كَثِيرَةٍ

“And fruit, abundant [and varied],”

Saheeh International

Essence

The word for abundant here is the root of the river given to the Prophet and of the race to have more than everybody else.

A reflection

Much in number, and much in worth

In some villages one family's name quietly becomes shorthand for giving. Nobody decided it. Over two or three generations, enough was handed out quietly enough that the surname started doing a second job. If you say the name, people hear the quality.

That is in this ayah's root, and it is the part English drops.

Kathīr is the opposite of little, and the lexicons make a point that matters. Muchness can mean worth as well as count. They cite an ayah where the word is used of excellence rather than number (38:51). Rising dust was called kawthar for its abundance, and so was a man who gave and gave.

So the root can describe a quantity, and it can describe a person, and the person is described by what comes out of him.

Then the same letters do something else. Kāthara was to outnumber a rival, to vie to have more than somebody. And from that comes takāthur, the race for more. The Quran names it as the thing that occupied a whole life: competing for more distracted you (102:1).

So one root gives al-Kawthar, the overflowing good that was given to the Prophet ﷺ (108:1), and the competitive accumulation that ruins people.

The difference between the two is not the amount. It is the direction.

Kawthar is much that is given out. Takāthur is much that is piled up against somebody else's much. The quantity may be identical; the two are opposite conditions of the same word.

And that is worth holding when you read "abundant fruit" and feel nothing. The flatness is because we hear a number. The root does not only mean a number. It means the state of a thing that overflows, and of a man who is known for it.

So the ayah's fruit is kathīra in the way a generous man is.

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.