An-Nabaʾ 78:14–16

The Questions These Verses Raise

The discussion moves from the source and character of the rain to what Allah brings forth through it, then to the conclusion these signs establish.

Q1. What are الْمُعْصِرَاتِ, al-muʿṣirāt?

The question concerns where the rain comes from and why its source receives this particular name. Al-muʿṣirāt is a description whose noun is left unstated. It could describe clouds or winds; some early explanations identify it with the heavens. To choose among them, we must consider both the word and its place in مِنَ الْمُعْصِرَاتِ, “from al-muʿṣirāt.” A possible meaning of the word is not necessarily the strongest explanation of the whole expression (Musāʿid al-Ṭayyār).^[1]

Clouds ready to rain

The cloud interpretation gives min, “from,” its ordinary force: it names the source from which the water descends. This explanation is attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما through ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭalḥah, and to Abū al-ʿĀliyah, al-Ḍaḥḥāk, al-Rabīʿ b. Anas and Sufyān al-Thawrī. A separate athar from ʿIkrimah also gives “clouds”; his name appears under the wind explanation in other athār. Rain comes from clouds, and another Qurʾānic passage distinguishes the winds that raise them from the clouds out of which the rain emerges (al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr).^[2]

Allah sends the winds, which stir the clouds; He then spreads the clouds and makes them into fragments. The rain emerges from within them. This distinguishes the winds' action from the rain's immediate source. The phrase “from al-muʿṣirāt” fits the clouds directly, without requiring an unusual sense of min (al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr).^[4]

Al-Naḥḥās also supports the cloud explanation with an athar attributed to Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه. It distinguishes winds transporting water from clouds yielding it:

The form of the word then raises a genuine difficulty. مُعْصِرَة, muʿṣirah, is an اسم فاعل, ism fāʿil, whereas a cloud pictured as being squeezed might seem to call for a passive description. The answer lies in the force of أَعْصَرَ, aʿṣara. The form أَفْعَلَ, afʿala, can indicate that the time for something has arrived. Arabic can say that crops have reached harvest time or that grapes have become ready to be picked. The subject need not perform the action upon itself. Accordingly, a cloud can be muʿṣirah because it has become ready to yield rain (al-Farrāʾ, al-Zamakhsharī, Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[6]

Arabic also calls a girl approaching puberty muʿṣir. This gives a familiar example of the same form naming entry into a stage, before the relevant flow begins. Al-Qurṭubī cites the complete rajaz passage:

The closing words of the rajaz establish this use. Aʿṣarat names entry into, or approach to, a condition. Applied to clouds, it describes their readiness to rain. Arabic also uses muʿṣir for a girl who has begun menstruating, rather than only one approaching it. The timing is therefore disputed, not a fixed part of the analogy. Al-Azharī objects to restricting the term to the stage before menstruation: the linguistic accounts he quotes also apply it after maturity is reached. The cloud comparison can concern readiness to release water or the release itself; it should not depend on one agreed age or stage (al-Farrāʾ; al-Azharī, quoted by al-Wāḥidī; al-Harawī, quoted by al-Samīn).^[8]

Readiness is not the only proposed explanation of the active form. Afʿala can also mean becoming possessed of something, as aysara means becoming possessed of ease or wealth: the clouds possess water ready for release. A further account, attributed to al-Dīnawarī, makes them available for the winds to draw water from them, just as dates become available to be eaten. Al-Khafājī reports an objection to that account: the derivation should instead be from ʿaṣr or ʿuṣrah, shelter or refuge. These alternatives concern how the clouds receive their name; neither changes the water’s immediate source. The retention-and-refuge explanation and its poetry are developed in Ṣarf below (al-Khafājī, al-Ālūsī).^[9]

The grammar explains how the form can fit clouds; poetry tests whether Arabic actually uses it that way. Al-Baʿīth compares a serrated row of teeth to chamomile blossoms:

The decisive word is الدَّوَالِحُ, al-dawāliḥ: things moving heavily under their load. Here the load is water. The poet is describing rain-bearing clouds, not merely a strong wind. This is why al-Azharī uses this poetry to support the cloud interpretation. His proof joins the noun being explained to an accompanying description that identifies what the poet means (al-Azharī, as quoted by al-Wāḥidī).^[11]

A different question remains: why use the language of pressing for rain at all? An old poetic image treats rain as the cloud’s extracted yield. Ḥassān b. Thābit رضي الله عنه says of wine and the water mixed with it:

One liquid comes from pressed grapes; the other is pictured as coming from a cloud’s “pressing.” This explanation is attributed to the judge ʿUbayd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿAnbarī by Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, whom Ibn ʿĀshūr follows. The poetry supports the connection between the root and the release of water, while the readiness construction explains the particular form muʿṣirāt.^[13]

A familiar comparison makes this image easier to follow: water held in a wet cloth comes out when the cloth is wrung. The cloud likewise yields water held within it. Ibn ʿUthaymīn uses this comparison to explain the description; Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal identifies extraction of liquid from within as the root's central meaning. The comparison explains the name through the water's emergence.^[14]

Winds: a possible meaning with a different account of “from”

The wind interpretation also has early support. It is attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما in other athār, and to Mujāhid, ʿIkrimah, Qatādah and Ibn Zayd. Here the winds draw rain from the clouds. Ibn Zayd invokes the same verse, 30:48, but attends to its first link: Allah sends the winds, and they raise clouds. Thus the two interpretations do not disagree that winds and clouds are involved. They differ over which one this particular description names (al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr).^[15]

Arabic usage permits muʿṣirāt to describe winds. An anonymous poet pictures them sifting dust across the land:

This establishes wind usage, but it also brings the difficulty into view: the wind in this poetry raises dust. Al-Azharī objects that إِعْصَار, iʿṣār, denotes the whirlwind, which is not the rain wind described by the verse. The reply is that muʿṣirāt need not be derived from iʿṣār in that restrictive sense. It may describe winds that draw water from clouds. Al-Rāzī therefore rejects the move from “dusty whirlwinds do not bring rain” to “winds cannot be meant.” Al-Māzinī instead applies the name to clouds accompanied by these winds: in his explanation, the winds press upon the clouds and rain follows. The action of the winds explains the clouds' name. Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī likewise records “clouds possessing whirlwinds,” distinguishing the clouds from the winds accompanying them (al-Azharī; al-Rāzī, reporting al-Māzinī; Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī).^[17]

Ibn Fāris approaches the relationship through association: winds stir the clouds called muʿṣirāt, so the name can pass to the winds beside them. This gives a linguistic account of why the same word may be used for both. It still leaves the sentence to determine which is intended here.^[18]

The harder objection concerns مِنْ, min. Water falls from clouds; winds are the means by which it is brought down. The wind interpretation has two answers. First, min can identify the starting cause: the rain is “from” the winds because they bring about its descent. Al-Rāzī compares saying that something is “from so-and-so,” meaning that it came about through him. Second, min can carry the sense of بِـ, bi-, giving “by means of the winds.” There are also transmitted forms with بِالْمُعْصِرَاتِ, bi-l-muʿṣirāt, which suit this explanation particularly well. These are two distinct grammatical answers, one retaining a starting-point meaning and the other understanding the preposition as marking the means (al-Zamakhsharī, al-Rāzī).^[19]

Does min require the thing descending to be a portion of the thing named after it? No. Ibn Jinnī compares أَعْطَيْتُهُ مِنْ يَدِي دِرْهَمًا, “I gave him a dirham from my hand,” with بِيَدِي دِرْهَمًا, “a dirham with my hand.” The dirham is not a portion of the hand. Min marks the starting point of the gift. Both constructions can therefore describe the same event. Applied here, water can come “from” clouds and be brought down “by means of” them. Thus the transmitted bi- form is compatible with the cloud explanation too; it does not, by itself, settle the choice in favour of winds (Ibn Jinnī; al-Ṭībī).^[20]

Al-Zamakhsharī cites a different account, in which winds carry water from the sky, and treats it conditionally: if that account is sound, descent “from” the winds is readily intelligible. His more general argument does not depend on that premise. Winds bring about the cloud’s rainfall, so they can be described as its starting cause. The cloud interpretation nevertheless remains more direct: it names the source from which rain emerges without requiring this further account of the process. Al-Naḥḥās also offers a reconciliation, quoted by al-Qurṭubī: winds bring rain and fertilize clouds, so “those possessing the rain-bearing winds” may join the accounts. This explains their connection without cancelling al-Qurṭubī’s preference for clouds as the natural source after “from” (al-Zamakhsharī; al-Naḥḥās, quoted by al-Qurṭubī).^[21]

The heavens and the direction of descent

“The heavens” is attributed to al-Ḥasan and Qatādah; al-Qurṭubī also names Ubayy b. Kaʿb, Saʿīd b. Jubayr, Zayd b. Aslam and Muqātil b. Ḥayyān. One explanation takes this to mean that water first descends from the heavens to clouds. The heavens would then be called muʿṣirāt because they enable the winds to draw water from those clouds. But this is a causative explanation: the heavens cause another agent to extract water. The objection is that this would make the heavens ʿāṣir, “one causing pressing,” rather than explain the actual form muʿṣir. The earlier account of muʿṣir as “ready to yield” does not establish it either. A different force of the opening hamzah must be proposed: التَّعْدِيَة, al-taʿdiyah, making another perform the action. Al-Ṭībī explains the interpretation this way, while al-Ālūsī records both the objections and this causative answer from al-Kashf. The proposal is grammatically more involved and rests on the additional premise about water reaching clouds from the heavens. Ibn Kathīr calls the interpretation gharīb (al-Ṭabarī; al-Ṭībī; al-Khafājī; al-Ālūsī).^[22]

A simpler way to understand the early explanation is as a statement of direction: rain comes from above. On that account, “the heavens” describes where the rain comes from, without claiming that it is the exact lexical equivalent of al-muʿṣirāt. This can agree with the cloud interpretation, but it cannot replace the closer explanation of the word. The comparison with 56:69 helps: that verse names the rain’s source as al-muzn, the clouds. Al-Maghāmisī uses it together with 78:14 to explain why rain said to descend from al-samāʾ can mean rain from the clouds, rather than a different immediate source. Al-Ṭabarī also considers the possibility of descent from the heavens. He answers it by returning to the rain people ordinarily observe: it descends from clouds. The possible account does not displace that direct explanation (Musāʿid al-Ṭayyār).^[23]

Does the name also suggest relief?

Ibn Kaysān connects the clouds’ name with relief: they bring aid through rain. The linguistic objection is that “one who gives relief” is عَاصِر, ʿāṣir, from عَصَرَ, ʿaṣara, whereas the Qurʾānic form is muʿṣir. The answer again uses the sense of readiness in afʿala: the clouds have reached the time when they will give relief. Thus the difference of form is explained rather than ignored. This gives another account of the clouds’ description, not a fourth physical source of rain (Ibn Kaysān, as discussed by al-Zamakhsharī and al-Ṭībī).^[24]

The miracle of rain: how a cloud becomes ready to yield water

The linguistic explanations identify clouds by the water they are ready to give. That readiness also invites us to consider the miracle of rain itself: water remains above the earth, then reaches the ground in a form that nourishes it. Calling a cloud “ready to rain” distinguishes the presence of water from its release. Al-Farrāʾ and Ibn ʿĀshūr explain the word through arrival at that stage. Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī also discusses how the sun's heat raises moisture from wet ground, seas and rivers, from which clouds form. He uses this account to explain how rain can come from clouds while depending on causes above them.^[25]

Modern meteorology makes the distinction between cloud formation and rainfall clearer. A cloud contains tiny water droplets, ice crystals, or both. Their small size allows them to remain suspended for considerable periods, especially in rising air. A cloud can therefore contain water without rain reaching the ground. Before that happens, its droplets or ice particles must grow sufficiently large to fall through the air.^[26]

That growth can occur as droplets collide and join together, or as ice crystals grow and collect other particles. Falling ice may melt into rain. Even then, some falling water evaporates before reaching the ground. Cloud formation, growth within the cloud and rainfall at the earth's surface are connected but distinct stages.^[27]

Knowing these processes gives us more to consider in the miracle of Allah’s provision. Water present in a cloud is not yet water nourishing the land: several conditions must be met before it reaches the earth as rain. The classical explanation names the cloud’s readiness to yield; meteorology explains processes involved in that readiness. The correspondence is meaningful. The verse directs our attention onward to what Allah brings forth through the water.

Conclusion

Al-muʿṣirāt here means clouds ready to yield rain. The wind explanation is possible Arabic and rests on a real connection between winds and rainfall, but it requires a less direct account of the preposition (al-Ṭabarī, al-Naḥḥās, al-Qurṭubī, al-Azharī as quoted by al-Wāḥidī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Ṭayyār).^[28]

And Allah knows best.

Q2. What does ثَجَّاجًا, thajjājan, add to the description of rain?

The verse describes more than water coming down. Thajjāj makes us consider how it comes down: pouring in succession, with the abundance that such pouring produces. The main question is whether abundance belongs to the word's meaning or follows from the continuous flow it describes. A second question concerns its grammar: does the water “pour,” or is it “poured”?^[29]

Successive pouring is the starting point

Al-Ṭabarī explains the expression as مَاءً مُنْصَبًا يَتْبَعُ بَعْضُهُ بَعْضًا, “water pouring down, one part following another.” The early explanations he transmits emphasize either pouring, succession or quantity: Mujāhid, Qatādah and al-Rabīʿ describe water pouring down; Sufyān al-Thawrī emphasizes succession; Ibn Zayd says it is abundant. Al-Ṭabarī's objection concerns the last explanation. In his account of Arabic usage, thajj names successive pouring rather than quantity considered by itself.^[30]

That distinction matters. A large amount of water lying still is abundant, but it is not thereby thajjāj. The word directs attention to flowing water. Al-Ṭabarī illustrates this through the outpouring of sacrificial blood. Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq رضي الله عنه narrates that the Prophet ﷺ was asked:

Here al-ʿajj concerns the voice raised in the talbiyah, and al-thajj concerns slaughtering the sacrificial camels and the resulting flow of blood. The usage explains why a word associated with rain can also describe something other than rain: what the two share is the act of pouring (al-Ṭabarī; al-Tirmidhī).^[32]

Poetry makes that movement visible. Abū Dhuʾayb prays:

The clouds are pictured as jars releasing their contents. Thajīj, from the same root, describes the water as it pours; the recurring nights extend the wish for rain. Al-Farrāʾ's explanation, كَالْعَزَالِي, “like the outlets of waterskins,” uses a similar image. Open the outlet and water streams out. Both images make the pouring visible. They do not by themselves exclude abundance: the Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq exchange uses Abū Dhuʾayb’s poetry precisely to support that further sense.^[34]

ʿUbayd b. al-Abraṣ develops that waterskin image:

The cloud becomes a filled waterskin whose outlets have been released. The verb names the flow that follows. This explains the strength of al-Ṭabarī's starting point: the root describes pouring, rather than an unspecified quantity of water.

Other poetry by ʿUbayd describes the cloud bursting under its load:

Here the cloud's heavy load explains the force of its outpouring. The first poetic witness describes opened outlets; this one describes a cloud overcome by the water it carries. Both establish the pouring sense, while the second also prepares the question of abundance.

Why abundance also belongs in the explanation

Abundance is not only a later addition to the explanation. It is attributed to al-Ḥasan in Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s report through Abū Ḥamzah al-ʿAṭṭār: plentiful water through which Allah grows grain. A report from ʿIkrimah preserves the narrator’s uncertainty between “pouring” and “much.” The Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq exchange attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās also gives plentiful water that produces crops and cites Abū Dhuʾayb’s poetry for that sense. These attributions establish a wider history of the explanation; the lexical question still needs the evidence that follows.^[37]

Ibn Kathīr quotes al-Ṭabarī's objection and answers it with the hadith of Ḥamnah bint Jaḥsh رضي الله عنها. She sought guidance because she was experiencing heavy bleeding outside her normal menstrual period. The relevant exchange is:

The final description is Ḥamnah’s speech. Ibn Kathīr quotes the recommendation of cotton and her answer that the flow exceeds it. The fuller exchange quoted here comes from al-Tirmidhī: she explains that each suggested measure is insufficient, then describes the excessive flow with أَثُجُّ ثَجًّا. The context therefore joins pouring with quantity. It gives a reason for retaining “abundant” in the explanation instead of treating it as an unrelated addition.^[39]

The form of the Qurʾānic word strengthens this conclusion. فَعَّال, faʿʿāl, is a form of مُبَالَغَة, mubālaghah: it intensifies the action or describes its frequent occurrence. Water that pours forcefully or repeatedly becomes a plentiful flow. Thus the root's emphasis on pouring and the form's emphasis on intensity can be explained together. Al-Khafājī and al-Ālūsī draw attention to this additional force; al-Rāzī describes drops following one another until the water becomes abundant and its benefit great.^[40]

Al-Kumayt's description of rain over a wild bull brings succession and abundance together:

Afāwīq identifies rain returning time after time. Sijāl pictures bucketfuls, and ghizāran describes their abundance. The poetry shows how repeated pouring produces a plentiful downpour. It does not require choosing between movement and quantity as though only one could be present.

A further example uses thajjāj itself, rather than another form from its root. Poetry attributed to al-Nābighah describes a cloud:

The cloud is pictured as heavy with what it holds, then releasing it. Thajjājan describes the outpouring, while ghazīr adds abundance. This is evidence for how the two ideas work together in a description of rain; it does not make abundance alone the meaning of the root.

The lexical evidence extends beyond a single poem. A copious spring is called عَيْنٌ ثَجُوجٌ, ʿayn thajūj, and the same root describes a valley filled by its flowing water. These usages lead Jabal to identify abundant outflow, from which a substantial amount collects, as the root's central meaning. They support Ibn Kathīr's inclusion of abundance while retaining al-Ṭabarī's insistence on actual pouring.^[43]

An anonymous poet describes arrival at such a spring:

This extends the evidence beyond falling rain. Water issuing from a spring can also be thajūj. The common feature is plentiful flow, rather than a particular source or direction of movement.

One brief tribal-language entry gives رَشَاشًا, rashāshan, “spraying,” as a usage of the Ashʿar tribe. It records another expression for water in motion but gives no poetic witness or explanation establishing slight drizzle as the meaning intended here. The developed evidence for forceful, plentiful pouring remains stronger.^[45]

There is also a question linking thajjāj to muʿṣirāt: if the earlier word suggests extracting water by pressing, does that imply only a small quantity, at odds with a downpour? The objection assumes too much. Pressing does not by itself determine the amount released. Even if the released amount is small compared with what its source contains, it can be plentiful for those receiving it. Nor must the derived description retain every feature of literal pressing. Thus the two descriptions need not conflict (al-Khafājī, al-Ālūsī).^[46]

Does the water pour, or is it poured?

Arabic permits both ثَجَّ الْمَاءُ, thajja al-māʾu, “the water poured,” and ثَجَّ الْمَاءَ, thajja al-māʾa, “he poured the water.” In the first, the verb is لَازِم, lāzim: the water itself flows. In the second, it is مُتَعَدٍّ, mutaʿaddin: an agent pours something. This difference explains the two grammatical accounts of thajjāj.^[47]

On Ibn Durayd's account, the cloud pours the water, so the water is مَثْجُوج, mathjūj, “poured.” He therefore understands the active form with a passive meaning. Arabic admits that kind of expression. Yet it is unnecessary here if the water can itself be said to pour. The alternative explanation preserves the ordinary active force: māʾan thajjājan is water pouring abundantly. Lisān al-ʿArab records the objection in precisely this form: because ثَجَّ الْمَاءُ نَفْسُهُ, “the water itself poured,” is established usage, that explanation is preferable to assigning a passive meaning to the active form.^[48]

Both constructions have poetic support. An anonymous poet describes blood:

The blood is described through its own flow, just as the water can be. By contrast, Ḥudhāfah b. Ghānim describes clouds pouring water:

Here تَثُجُّ الْمَاءَ, “pouring the water,” has an object. The examples explain why the grammatical alternatives arise. For the verse itself, the simpler account is the active one: the water pours down abundantly. The passive account describes the same event from the side of what the cloud does to the water; it does not establish a different kind of rain (al-Rāzī, al-Khafājī, Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[51]

Al-Zajjāj offers a further active explanation: it is as though the water “pours itself.” This treats the verb as transitive while making the flowing water its own object. The explanation preserves the force of pouring, although the established intransitive use already gives that meaning without the additional construction.^[52]

Conclusion

Thajjāj describes a copious downpour, water pouring in succession. Al-Ṭabarī correctly directs attention to the action of pouring; Ibn Kathīr's evidence, the intensive form and the poetic usages explain why abundance should also be retained. The verse names a gift through both its movement and its plenty. That prepares the next statement of purpose: this water brings forth grain, vegetation and gardens. And Allah knows best.^[53]

Q3. Why name grain, vegetation and gardens separately?

Rain is the beginning of the provision described here. The next two verses turn to what it produces:

Grain is itself vegetation, and a garden contains vegetation. Why, then, name all three? First, each term draws attention to a different benefit, even where the plants overlap. Their order then begins with staple food and ends with gardens. Finally, the description “intertwined” makes the gardens’ abundance visible. These three features explain how the passage leads us from the rain to the fullness of its gift.

Grain, fresh growth and pasture

The first distinction begins with the harvest. حَبًّا, ḥabban, includes the grain enclosed in the husks of crops that people reap. Wheat and barley are familiar examples. نَبَاتًا, nabātan, then draws attention to the other growth upon which animals graze. On this explanation, the verse brings together the food people harvest and the pasture their livestock need (al-Ṭabarī).^[55]

That distinction should not be made absolute. People also eat plants other than grain; livestock also eat grain. The division can describe predominant uses without assigning every plant exclusively to one consumer. Al-Khafājī makes this qualification explicitly when explaining the familiar food-and-fodder interpretation. Ibn Kathīr develops another distinction: grain is stored for people and animals, whereas the other growth is eaten fresh. His explanation includes both consumers under grain and gives freshness, rather than animal consumption alone, as the distinguishing feature of the second term.^[56]

A further distinction concerns cultivation. Grain may represent what people sow and reap, while vegetation includes the trees and pasture that grow in mountains and open country without being planted by them. Rain nourishes both. The benefit therefore reaches beyond the field that its owner has prepared. This is Muqātil's explanation; al-Māwardī also proposes the distinction between what people sow and what they do not sow.^[57]

Al-Māwardī also records a less usual explanation taking ḥabb as pearls. He associates it with a saying attributed to ʿIkrimah that each falling drop produces either a plant on land or a pearl in the sea. This is a different identification of the word, not simply another example of a crop. The immediate sequence of vegetation and gardens favours the ordinary explanation as harvested grain. The attributed saying does not establish the proposed account of how pearls form.^[58]

The broad meaning of nabāt also permits an explanation that includes fruit-bearing plants. Figs and grapes are examples in Ibn ʿUthaymīn's discussion; al-Ṭayyār includes palms, pomegranates and grapes. On this account, the mention of gardens gathers some of that vegetation into a further picture: abundant growth with branches intertwined. Naming gardens after vegetation does not require every tree to have been excluded from the preceding word.^[59]

The distinction can even concern two aspects of the same crop. A farmer may cultivate a plant chiefly for its grain, or chiefly for its green growth. The verse can name each intended benefit. It is also possible for grain and vegetation to describe the same growing crop, since a grain-bearing plant possesses both. This is why the conjunction alone cannot prove that the two terms denote entirely separate classes (al-Māturīdī).^[60]

Arabic plant names themselves sometimes have a wider range than their most familiar English equivalents. In explaining the pasture of 16:10, al-Shinqīṭī notes that شَجَر, shajar, can include grazing vegetation. He cites al-Nimr b. Tawlab al-ʿUklī:

The evidence lies in the closing words of the rajaz: shajar names the horses' ordinary grazing food, whose scarcity forces the exceptional feeding described by the poet. It need not mean tall, woody trees. This helps explain why a Qurʾānic discussion of rain can use broad plant terms while distinguishing the food of people and animals according to context.

Why grain comes first

The terms thus distinguish benefits, not necessarily separate groups of plants. Their sequence raises a further question: why name grain before the green growth from which it develops?

The order is not the order in which a crop develops. Its green growth appears before its grain, yet grain is named first because it is a principal human food. The verse orders the benefits according to their importance to those being addressed (al-Ālūsī).^[62]

The three terms also give a compact account of different kinds of growth. Plants without a woody trunk may yield grain enclosed in husks or provide grass and similar growth; plants with trunks become trees, and a collection of trees forms a garden. From this classification, al-Rāzī explains the sequence of benefits: staple food first, then the vegetation needed by animals, then fruit gardens whose benefit goes beyond the most basic need for food. His reasoning concerns the ordinary priorities of subsistence. It does not turn the words into an exclusive division between what humans and animals may eat.^[63]

What makes the gardens “intertwined”?

The sequence ends with more than another item of food. A garden gathers many benefits into one place, and “intertwined” tells us what its flourishing growth looks like.

A جَنَّة, jannah, is a garden whose trees cover and shelter what lies beneath them. The root's sense of concealment explains the name. The word can also name the trees themselves. Zuhayr's description provides a clear example:

The comparison is with eyes pouring tears. Its linguistic value here lies in سُحُقًا, “towering”: height belongs to the palms, so jannah can refer to the trees growing in the garden. That usage explains how Allah brings forth “gardens.” Alternatively, an unstated noun may be understood: the fruit of gardens, as al-Ṭabarī explains, or their trees, as Ibn ʿĀshūr explains. The soil of the garden is not what grows out of the rain.^[65]

أَلْفَافًا, alfāfan, describes growth gathered closely together and intertwined. Al-Ṭabarī identifies “intertwined” as the meaning on which the early explanations agree. “Gathered together,” attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما, describes something that this meaning entails: branches cannot intertwine unless they are gathered together. Al-Ṭayyār explains the relationship in this direction. These explanations therefore meet in the same scene rather than describing rival kinds of garden (al-Ṭabarī, al-Ṭayyār).^[66]

The scene need not contain trees alone. An explanation attributed to ʿIkrimah speaks of crops growing side by side. Al-Māwardī proposes a garden whose ground is filled with crops while its upper growth consists of trees, the two forms of vegetation flourishing together. This preserves the abundance expressed by alfāf while allowing the garden's lower growth a place in the description.^[67]

Why praise intertwined growth when fruit growers may space trees apart to improve their yield? The verse presents a blessing as people experience it: fruit, shelter, shade and beauty together. Closely gathered branches make that abundance visible. Ibn ʿĀshūr raises the cultivation question himself and answers it through the passage's purpose. The verse evokes a flourishing garden; it does not prescribe the spacing of an orchard.^[68]

Conclusion

The best inclusive explanation, then, is that Allah brings forth grain, the wider growth on which creatures live, and gardens rich with intertwined vegetation. The familiar grain-and-pasture interpretation brings out an important benefit, while the wider explanations preserve the breadth of the words. Their order begins with staple provision and ends with the garden in its fullness. And Allah knows best.

Q4. How does this growth lead to resurrection and judgment?

The passage says لِنُخْرِجَ بِهِ, li-nukhrija bi-hi: Allah sends the water down in order to bring growth forth through it. The wording identifies the One who acts, the means He uses and the benefit He intends. It also prepares for the announcement of the Day of Judgment in verse 17.

The rain is a means, and Allah brings forth the growth

The pronoun in bi-hi, “through it,” refers to the rain. The verse does not stop at saying that rain falls and plants subsequently appear. It connects the two: Allah brings forth the growth through the water He sends. Recognizing the means therefore belongs within recognizing His action. The rain is created, its properties are created, and the result is attributed to Allah: “We may bring forth.” (al-Ālūsī, al-Qāsimī).^[69]

The rain is a real cause by which Allah brings the growth forth: He made the water and its effect, and He is not bound by it. To say that He acts at the water and not by it departs from the wording of the Qurʾān (Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim).^[70]

This does not give water independent power. The words “through it” identify the means, while “We bring forth” identifies Allah as the One who creates the result. He has connected causes with effects in His wisdom; acknowledging that connection is part of recognizing how He provides for His creation (al-Qāsimī).^[71]

That connection remains when rainwater reaches a crop indirectly. Water can first enter the ground and later be drawn out for irrigation. The intervention of a well does not sever the crop's dependence on the rain. Ibn ʿUthaymīn makes this point when explaining how the water mentioned here produces crops, palms and vines.^[72]

A purpose carried through to food

The لَامُ التَّعْلِيلِ, lām al-taʿlīl, in li-nukhrija states the purpose: the rain is sent so that growth will emerge. This is a benefit intended by the One who sends it. It is not an outcome that surprises Him.^[73]

That purpose becomes clearer when we follow one harvest through its stages. The existence of water is only the beginning. It must reach the ground in a form that nourishes it. The earth must open for the shoot; the plant must grow and produce an ear; the grain must develop and ripen until it can feed someone. At every stage, an earlier benefit leads to another needed result. Al-Shinqīṭī develops this sequence by asking the reader to consider the bread on which he lives. Naming the rain alone has not yet explained the whole gift. The stages also give the observer repeated occasions to recognize Allah’s power and wisdom. If the result were created all at once, the observer would not see these successive changes. Al-Zamakhsharī explains this as a wisdom in gradual creation, even though Allah can create without such causes. Al-Ṭībī compares it with Ibrāhīm’s step-by-step argument to his people: star, moon and sun are considered in turn before their worship is rejected.^[74]

His argument also answers a failure of attention. A familiar process is easily taken for granted, especially when its final product is already on the table. Following it back through the ripened grain, the ear, the plant, the soil and the rain makes dependence visible again. Human cultivation works through these provisions; it does not create the water or confer the power of growth. Al-Shinqīṭī reads the command to consider one's food as a duty to reflect upon this evidence, not merely to look at the finished meal.^[75]

The poetry attributed to Zayd b. ʿAmr b. Nufayl expresses that movement from observation to recognition:

The question concerns the agency behind the whole development. The poet moves from buried grain to green shoots and then to new grain. His closing words ask for understanding of what has been observed, giving this ordinary growth its evidentiary purpose.

The different fruits produced through the same water give another sign of purposeful provision. As the discussion of 13:4 in Thematic Connections explains, Ibn Kathīr connects this variety with the gardens here. The same means serves many beneficial results.^[77]

From plants emerging to people emerging

Why does the verse say “bring forth” rather than simply “make grow”? The first expression directs attention to emergence from the earth. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains that this wording helps the hearer picture the resurrection which the passage is preparing to announce. The growth is a blessing, and its emergence is also evidence. The Qurʾān makes the connection explicit elsewhere:

The land had been barren of vegetation; Allah brings life forth through rain. The hearer already accepts that this happens. The verse turns that accepted experience toward the denied resurrection: the One who gives life to the barren land has power to give life to the dead. Al-Ḥasan's explanation, preserved by Yaḥyā b. Sallām under 25:49–50, follows precisely this inference from the rain that feeds creation and revives dry land.^[79]

The parallel is sharpened by the wording of another passage:

The same expression of bringing forth now concerns people. The sequence has also returned to its starting point. It began with the earth, moved through its creatures and the night and day, rose to the heavens and sun, and descended with the rain to the earth’s produce. Ibn ʿĀshūr draws attention to this return: the final scene brings the hearer back to the ground considered at the beginning. The transition from growing plants to verse 17 is therefore intelligible: the earth from which Allah brings forth provision will also be the earth from which He raises its inhabitants (Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Ṭayyār).^[81]

The appointed Day

The full argument connecting these signs with power, wisdom, gratitude and judgment is developed in 78:6–7, Q2.^[82]

Here the transition announces an appointed time for judgment; it does not reveal the date of the Hour. The following verse gives that revealed announcement:

The announcement also returns to the opening warning: “They will know.” The signs in verses 6–16 stand between that warning and the declaration of the appointed Day. On the construction explained in Darj al-durar, the intervening description does not begin an unrelated topic: the discourse resumes by identifying what the deniers will come to know. Those denying the warning may demand that it be brought about at once. But a demand to hasten judgment does not determine its time. Its delay therefore does not weaken the evidence of Allah's power. Judgment has its appointed time; its arrival is not governed by the impatience of those demanding it. Al-Ālūsī explains the transition in this way, while al-Maẓharī joins the established power and wisdom to the announcement of the time fixed for recompense.^[84]

Conclusion

The rain and harvest point to Allah’s power to raise the dead and to the judgment He has appointed. The provision calls for gratitude now, and the promised meeting calls for preparation. And Allah knows best.

How the Commentators Read These Verses

Yaḥyā b. Sallām (d. 200 AH): rain received in different places

Rain's abundance and its distribution are different questions. A place may receive little while another receives much. In his explanation of 25:50, Yaḥyā b. Sallām records an athar attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما:

The athar places the difference in where the rain goes, rather than in its total amount. Its purpose in this explanation is to direct attention from the rain someone receives to the One who apportions it. The claim about annual totals remains an attributed statement of Ibn ʿAbbās, not a measured finding about the world's rainfall. For the present verses, the useful distinction is between describing rain as copious and claiming that every place receives an equal share.

Al-Māturīdī (d. 333 AH): how the gift reaches its recipients

Rain benefits the earth through the manner of its descent, not merely through the existence of water above it. Al-Māturīdī asks the reader to consider drops following one another. If that water arrived as one joined mass, he reasons, what nourishes creation could instead destroy it. Its successive descent displays mercy in the way the benefit is given.

He then considers its destination. A heavy cloud travels before releasing its rain at a particular place. In his account, this selection shows that the cloud does not govern its own release. He tests two proposed explanations: if sending rain were simply the cloud's own action, why would it not rain wherever it passed? If wind entering openings were sufficient, why would release not follow whenever that occurred? From these observations he concludes that the formation, retention and release of the rain belong to Allah’s power and wisdom.^[2]

His conclusion concerns the limits of human control and the governance of the whole event. The cloud's weight, movement and release must be considered together. This is a different approach from merely noticing that water makes plants grow. The question of whether Allah gives created means real causal effects is developed separately in Q4.

Al-Biqāʿī (d. 885 AH): abundant gardens beside divine greatness

The word “gardens” gathers an immense variety of trees and plants into one brief expression. Al-Biqāʿī notices that ⁧جَنَّات⁩, jannāt, can be treated as a ⁧جَمْعُ قِلَّةٍ⁩, jamʿ qillah, a plural form associated with a limited number. Yet gardens across the earth are beyond easy counting. He therefore does not take the form as a count of the gardens that exist. He understands the contrast through the greatness of the One who brings them forth: what seems vast to its recipients is little beside His power.^[3]

This is his explanation of the form's effect in context. The gardens' abundance remains real, and alfāf, “intertwined,” makes their richness visible. The grammatical form does not impose a numerical ceiling on Allah's gift.

Iʿrāb: Grammatical Structure

The three verses form one connected sentence: Allah sends down water to bring forth grain, vegetation and gardens through it. The verse endings mark stages in that account; they do not sever its grammatical connections. The word table follows Dār al-Ṣaḥābah’s Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm.^[1]

The clause relationships explain how the sending of rain is connected to its purpose.^[2]

Where the grammar changes the meaning

Does “from the rain-bearing clouds” describe the sending or the water? The straightforward construction attaches ⁧مِنَ الْمُعْصِرَاتِ⁩ to ⁧أَنْزَلْنَا⁩: “We sent water down from the clouds.” A second construction makes it a ⁧حَال⁩, ḥāl, describing the water in its descent. An indefinite noun’s description can take this position when moved before it: the sense is “We sent down water coming from the clouds.” Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṭāhā al-Durrah gives both. The second makes the water’s origin its accompanying description; it does not identify a different source or require a substantially different English translation.^[3]

There is a separate question about what min means. ⁧ابْتِدَاءُ الْغَايَةِ⁩, ibtidāʾ al-ghāyah, identifies the starting point: the rain descends from the clouds. ⁧السَّبَبِيَّة⁩, al-sababiyyah, identifies a cause: on the wind interpretation, the rain descends through the agency of the winds. Al-Samīn allows these two functions. They change the relationship expressed by the preposition, rather than merely its grammatical attachment. Q1 develops the evidence for the cloud interpretation and the responses offered for the wind interpretation.^[4]

Why “to bring forth,” rather than simply “and We brought forth”? The ⁧لَامُ التَّعْلِيلِ⁩ makes the second act the purpose of the first. Rain and growth are not merely two benefits placed next to one another. The sentence connects them: water is sent down so that produce may emerge. The understood an explains the fatḥah in nukhrija; it does not add a separate English word beyond the natural “to” or “so that.”^[5]

What emerges: gardens, their trees, or their fruit? A garden includes its land as well as what grows there. When “bring forth” governs jannāt, one explanation understands a ⁧مُضَافٌ مَحْذُوفٌ⁩, muḍāf maḥdhūf, an omitted governing noun: “the trees of gardens” (Ibn ʿĀshūr), or “the fruit of gardens” (al-Ṭabarī). The first names the growth that forms the orchard; the second emphasizes its produce. “Gardens” remains a natural English rendering because an orchard can be spoken of through what grows in it. An explanatory translation such as “garden fruit,” however, commits to the second interpretation. Q3 explains why gardens can be named through their trees or their fruit.^[6]

An understood verb before “gardens.” The baseline joins gardens to grain and vegetation as objects of the same verb. Al-Qurṭubī also reports an alternative: an unstated verb is understood before gardens, “and We bring forth through it gardens of entwined growth.” The preceding wording makes that repetition intelligible. This changes the sentence analysis, not the source of the growth: Allah still brings the gardens forth through the water. An expanded translation can repeat the verb to show this construction; the shorter “and gardens” leaves it understood.^[7]

Ṣarf: Roots and Word Formation

The forms move from sending water down to bringing growth out, then describe the water’s flow and the gardens’ density. The table identifies the nine root-bearing words; the discussions below explain where their formation needs closer attention.^[1]

Where the morphology changes the meaning

Descent and emergence: two causative verbs. نَزَلَ, nazala, describes descent; أَنْزَلَ, anzala, makes another thing descend. Similarly, خَرَجَ, kharaja, describes coming out, while أَخْرَجَ, akhraja, brings something out. The sequence therefore keeps Allah’s action explicit on both sides: He sends down the water and brings forth the crops through it (al-Rāghib, al-Samīn).^[2]

The added hamzah does not establish a universal contrast between a single descent and repeated descents. Al-Rāghib describes inzāl as general and discusses tanzīl in relation to successive revelation. Al-Samīn tests that distinction against 25:32, where the request for revelation “all at once” itself uses the Form II verb. The distinction must be judged in context. Here أَنْزَلْنَا establishes sending down; the description ثَجَّاجًا tells us about the rain’s pouring character.^[3]

Why an active form can describe clouds ready to release rain. If the intended construction were simply “clouds being squeezed,” the expected اسْمُ مَفْعُولٍ, ism mafʿūl, would be مُعْصَرَات, muʿṣarāt, with fatḥah on the ṣād. The verse has مُعْصِرَات, muʿṣirāt, with kasrah. The readiness explanation accounts for that actual form: أَعْصَرَتْ means entering the time of the relevant action, just as a crop may be said to have reached the time for cutting. The clouds are ready to rain. This is al-Samīn’s answer to the active/passive difficulty, following the explanation he quotes from al-Zamakhsharī. Q1 presents the complete age and crop analogies and their poetic evidence.^[4]

The root also has a directly attested rain use: أُعْصِرَ النَّاسُ, uʿṣira al-nāsu, “the people were rained upon.” Lisān al-ʿArab relates this to a reported passive wording يُعْصَرُونَ, yuʿṣarūna, in 12:49. This is lexical evidence quoted by the dictionary, not an independent determination here of that reading’s readers or transmission status. Al-Baghawī also relates Ibn Kaysān’s relief explanation to 12:49. The different proposed senses and forms must not be silently combined.^[5]

The proposed relief derivation raises a related question. The verb meaning to help or rescue is triliteral عَصَرَ, ʿaṣara, whereas muʿṣirāt is formed from the quadriliteral aʿṣara. The response again gives the added hamzah the sense of entering a time or condition: those ready to give relief. It explains how Ibn Kaysān’s proposed meaning could fit the form; it does not remove the contextual reasons for preferring rain-bearing clouds.^[6]

Further lexical evidence for the cloud explanation

Q1 tests the cloud interpretation through the sentence, the active form and direct poetic usage. The further evidence below answers narrower questions: whether the maturity comparison is attested, how the refuge derivation works, what identifies clouds in other poetry, and where a wording variant limits the proof. These witnesses refine those arguments; none by itself replaces the evidence of the verse’s construction.

An attested stage of maturity

The age-related use also appears in ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿah:

Here muʿṣir identifies a stage of maturity, alongside another age-related description. This established usage explains how the same form can describe clouds reaching the stage when they yield rain.

Holding water: the refuge derivation

There is also an explanation through retention. A cloud holds water that is drawn from it little by little. This is connected with ʿaṣr or ʿuṣrah as shelter or refuge: the shared idea is holding or keeping something within. It differs from deriving the word directly from the act of pressing, although both explanations lead to the cloud (al-Mubarrad, as quoted by al-Qurṭubī).^[8]

The refuge meaning is illustrated by Abū Zubayd's lament:

ʿUṣrah here is the person to whom someone in distress turns for shelter. This establishes the root's refuge sense; the connection with a cloud holding water is the commentator's explanation.

What clouds do: rain at an abandoned dwelling

Another witness identifies the clouds by what their rain does to an abandoned dwelling:

The setting explains the usage. The dwelling is deserted, and rain has altered its traces. Here al-muʿṣirāt belongs beside the night-moving raincloud and its wetting water. The context identifies rain clouds through their action, whereas al-Baʿīth’s poetry identifies them through the load they carry (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ḥabannakah al-Maydānī).^[11]

The same cloud sense appears in poetry attributed to al-Nābighah:

In the explanation attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما in the exchange with Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq, this poetry accompanies the proposal that clouds press against one another and water emerges between them. It describes dark clouds accompanied by winds, identifying al-muʿṣirāt with the clouds in that scene. The report preserves that explanation; it does not by itself establish the physical mechanism of rainfall.

A variant that limits the evidence

One further witness needs a qualification. Poetry by Dhū al-Rummah is quoted with al-ʿaṣr meaning rain:

This wording would connect ʿaṣr directly with rain. However, the more common wording is الْقَطْرُ, al-qaṭr, “rain,” rather than al-ʿaṣr. This wording therefore has less weight for establishing the root's meaning than the witnesses that name al-muʿṣirāt without this variation (Ibn Manẓūr).

Water: how the lost letters become visible. The word مَاء has only mīm, alif and hamzah. Its relatives preserve more of its formation: أَمْوَاه, amwāh, and مِيَاه, miyāh, are plurals, while مُوَيْه, muwayh, is the diminutive. Their wāw and hāʾ support the underlying مَوَه, mawah. Al-Jawharī identifies the hamzah as a replacement for hāʾ. Al-Layth explains the lengthening as compensation for a lost hāʾ; Abū Manṣūr begins from مَاه, māh, and explains the change through the difficulty of pronouncing hāʾ after the preceding long vowel. The accounts differ in their intermediate steps but share the evidence of forms retaining hāʾ.^[14]

Not every plural restores hāʾ. Ibn Jinnī also records أَمْوَاء, amwāʾ, with this anonymous rajaz received from Abū ʿAlī:

The witness establishes an additional plural retaining the hamzah. It qualifies the range of forms without cancelling the evidence of amwāh and muwayh. The explanation of سَمَاؤُهَا as “its rain” belongs to the quoted passage; the poem describes a land deprived of water.

Does the water pour or get poured? ثَجَّ occurs as both لَازِم, lāzim, taking no direct object, and مُتَعَدٍّ, mutaʿaddin, taking an object. In the first, water pours; in the second, someone pours water. On the first construction, thajjāj describes water pouring abundantly. Q2 explains al-Zajjāj’s proposed self-pouring construction. The simpler intransitive use, preferred by al-Khafājī and reported as a choice by al-Ālūsī, requires no understood object. The intensive pattern strengthens the pouring; it does not make these two constructions identical. Q2 gives the lexical witnesses and the evidence for abundance.^[16]

Grain and vegetation: the form and the thing named. حَبّ, ḥabb, names grain collectively, while حَبَّة, ḥabbah, singles out one grain. The food sense is distinct from حُبّ, ḥubb, love. Ibn Fāris distinguishes the root’s branches rather than making grain an image of love. Lisān al-ʿArab also preserves a useful limit in the food definition: Abū Ḥanīfah al-Dīnawarī’s formulation names wheat and barley, while al-Azharī includes lentils, rice and other edible grain. The broader wording accommodates these crops without treating one narrow example as the word’s complete range.^[17]

The kasrah in حِبَّة, ḥibbah, introduces a different set of explanations: wild seeds, herbage, or its scattered dry remains. Al-Azharī describes animals fattening on the seeds and leaves left after summer’s vegetation has dried. Abū al-Najm’s rajaz provides the linguistic example:

The subject is his camels. The witness explains why a similar-looking noun may denote the growth animals graze, while ḥabb in the verse names grain. The lexical categories overlap in what living creatures can eat; their vowels and customary uses still differ. Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal approaches the root through the gathering of small things closely together, taking grains as a direct example. That broader root proposal leaves the established food meaning intact.^[19]

نَبَات can name growing as an action and the vegetation that grows. Its function here settles which is intended: it is coordinated with grain as something Allah brings forth. Ibn ʿĀshūr calls the form an اسْمُ مَصْدَرٍ, ism maṣdar, a noun naming the action, then explains its use here through إِطْلَاقُ الْمَصْدَرِ عَلَى الْفَاعِلِ, iṭlāq al-maṣdar ʿalā al-fāʿil: naming what grows by the action of growing. This is a use so familiar that its original intensifying force is no longer felt. Al-Rāghib distinguishes the broad botanical sense from common uses restricted to smaller plants or animal fodder. Those contextual limits are considered in Q3; they do not create a different root or pattern.^[20]

Usage also determines whether a related verb is causative. Al-Aṣmaʿī objected to أَنْبَتَ, anbata, meaning simply “grew”; Abū ʿUbaydah answered with Zuhayr’s description of people sheltering with generous households during a hard year:

The last phrase makes the herbage the subject of anbata: it grew, rather than causing something else to grow. The attested use answers the grammatical objection. In the present verse, by contrast, نَبَاتًا is a noun governed by “We bring forth”; it names the vegetation, with Allah’s action stated by the preceding verb.

Why a garden is a jannah. The root ج ن ن concerns concealment. A garden’s trees cover its ground and shelter someone within it from view; the name can therefore denote the planted enclosure or the trees forming that covering. The expression جَنَّتِ الْأَرْضُ بِالنَّبَاتِ, jannati l-arḍu bi-l-nabāt, likewise describes the earth becoming covered with growth. This explains why jannāt can stand as something brought forth from the earth. The grammatical explanations involving its trees or fruit appear above (Ibn Fāris, al-Rāghib, al-Zamakhsharī, al-Samīn).^[22]

The range of the noun also has a narrower explanation. Abū ʿAlī, quoted from al-Tadhkirah in Lisān al-ʿArab, requires palms and grapevines for a planted enclosure to be called a jannah; an enclosure of other trees is a ḥadīqah. The same lexical discussion also gives the broader use for palms and other trees. These are different accounts of the noun's range. Both retain its connection with tree cover, while the wording of 78:16 describes the gardens' intertwined growth without specifying their species.^[23]

How is أَلْفَاف, alfāf, formed?

The root’s starting point is wrapping or gathering one thing around another. Trees can be described through their interwoven branches just as people gathered from different groups can be called a lafīf. Muḥammad Ḥasan Jabal draws a useful distinction: this is growth gathered around other growth, rather than things glued into one solid mass.^[24]

Al-Ṭirimmāḥ uses the related noun لَفَف, lafaf, for clustered trees:

His praise makes generosity resemble a source of flourishing growth. The phrase lafaf min al-ashjār establishes the tree-clustering sense directly. The remaining question is how the particular form alfāf relates to a singular word. The two clearest explanations differ over whether a singular must be supplied.

A collective without a singular. An ism jamʿ can describe a group without a matching singular formed from the same word. Al-Zamakhsharī compares alfāf with أَوْزَاع, awzāʿ, and أَخْيَاف, akhyāf, expressions for groups. This explanation directly gives “intertwined” without requiring an otherwise uncertain singular. Ibn ʿĀshūr considers it the clearest account: the proposed alternatives should have established usage behind them, especially when a recognized collective construction already explains the expression.^[26]

The evidence for liff. Al-Akhfash explicitly gives لِفّ, liff, as the singular of alfāf. The formation is straightforward if that singular is accepted: لِفّ / أَلْفَاف follows the familiar relation of سِرّ / أَسْرَار, sirr/asrār, a secret and secrets, or جِذْع / أَجْذَاع, jidʿ/ajdhāʿ, a trunk and trunks. A complete witness is preserved through al-Ṭūsī:

The point is the singular phrase jannah liff. A single garden receives the very description that this explanation proposes behind alfāf. The rest of the poetry describes a pleasant place, a comfortable life and attractive company. Al-Khafājī explains mughdiq through abundance and the final adjective through brightness. Al-Samīn and Ibn Kamāl record al-Ṭūsī’s recitation of this poetry; its composer is not named in their accounts.^[28]

Abū Ḥayyān answers the more elaborate formation from multaffah by returning to this simpler issue: the language authorities record liff. He quotes al-Mufradāt for its being the account of the majority of lexicographers. Al-Ālūsī likewise favours the attested liff and its regular plural. Ibn ʿĀshūr gives less weight to the unnamed poetic attribution and prefers the collective account. The explanations therefore turn on the strength assigned to the singular’s attestation, not on whether the gardens have intertwined growth.^[29]

The reported singulars differ in both vowels and formation; these are linguistic explanations, not different recitations of the Qurʾānic word.^[30]

The most economical plural explanation is liff → alfāf, supported by the recorded singular and a familiar pattern. The collective explanation remains a substantial alternative, preferred by Ibn ʿĀshūr. Neither changes the translation “intertwined gardens.” And Allah knows best.

Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

Water described through its pouring

Where it is: مَاءً ثَجَّاجًا, māʾan thajjājan, “abundantly pouring water.”

The plain way: “We sent down water.”

What it does: The adjective moves beyond identifying the substance to describing its movement. On the intensive pattern فَعَّال, faʿʿāl, thajjāj expresses the strength or abundance of the pouring. The sentence first names what descends, then makes its flow vivid. The force comes from the intensive description itself. Q2 considers whether to understand the verb as intransitive or adopt al-Zajjāj’s further self-pouring image (al-Ṣāfī, al-Khafājī, al-Ālūsī).^[1]

The effect: The reader pictures rain reaching the earth in a generous flow, preparing for the abundance of growth that follows. Q2 establishes why “successive pouring” and “abundant pouring” are compatible explanations.

Sending down leads to bringing forth

Where it is: وَأَنْزَلْنَا … لِنُخْرِجَ بِهِ, wa-anzalnā… li-nukhrija bihi, “We sent down… to bring forth through it.”

The plain way: “We sent down water, and plants grew.”

What it does: The purpose-lām joins the two acts: the water descends for the emergence of growth. The pronoun in bihi refers back to the water as the means of growth. Allah is the subject of both verbs: He sends the water and brings forth the produce through it. The wording نُخْرِجَ also presents the crops as coming out of the earth. Ibn ʿĀshūr draws attention to this choice in place of a verb simply meaning “make grow,” because emergence from the earth prepares the comparison with resurrection.^[2]

The effect: Rain and crops become one intelligible act of provision. The reader can follow the descent of water to the emergence of food; the language of emergence also gives the passage its connection to the sūrah’s central question. Q4 develops that argument and its theological qualifications.

Grain comes first in the list

Where it is: حَبًّا وَنَبَاتًا وَجَنَّاتٍ أَلْفَافًا, ḥabban wa-nabātan wa-jannātin alfāfan, “grain, vegetation and intertwined gardens.”

The plain way: A list of things that grow, arranged by the order in which they appear.

What it does: Grain is named before vegetation even though grain develops after the plant has grown. Its precedence therefore directs attention to its importance as staple food. On the distinction between human food, pasture and garden fruit, the order moves from the most basic need through the support of livestock to a further range of nourishment and enjoyment. Al-Rāzī explains the order by need; al-Ālūsī explicitly distinguishes it from the order of growth. Where nabāt is understood more broadly, naming grain first also singles out an important member before the wider class (al-Rāzī, Abū Ḥayyān, al-Ālūsī).^[3]

The effect: The list makes the value of the produce apparent, rather than merely counting botanical kinds. Its order is intelligible without implying that all grain feeds only people or all other vegetation feeds only animals.

Gardens convey more than individual trees

Where it is: وَجَنَّاتٍ, wa-jannātin, “and gardens.”

The plain way: “And fruit-bearing trees.”

What it does: “Gardens” brings the trees into a planted place with shade, fruit, water and a pleasing appearance. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains the choice as an indication of the completeness of the gift: its benefit includes enjoyment as well as food. The following alfāf adds the beauty of abundant, intertwined growth. This is an account of the scene’s attractiveness, rather than a prescription for the spacing that maximizes an orchard’s yield.^[4]

The effect: Provision is seen in its fullness. The same rain that gives essential food also makes places in which people find shelter and delight.

The gardens themselves are called intertwined: مَجَازٌ عَقْلِيٌّ (majāz ʿaqlī)

Where it is: جَنَّاتٍ أَلْفَافًا, jannātin alfāfan.

The plain way: “Gardens whose trees intertwine with one another.”

What it does: Intertwining belongs directly to the trees and branches, but the adjective is attached to the gardens containing them. Ibn ʿĀshūr identifies this as مَجَازٌ عَقْلِيٌّ, majāz ʿaqlī: a quality is attributed through a known relationship, here the relationship between a place and what grows in it. The gardens gather the trees whose branches interweave, so the description passes naturally to the whole place.^[5]

The effect: The phrase gives a compact picture of the entire garden as densely grown. It does not require the boundaries of separate gardens to overlap.

A matching sound across the verse endings

Where it is: أَلْفَافًا, alfāfan, at the end of verse 16, compared with أَفْوَاجًا, afwājan, and أَبْوَابًا, abwāban, in verses 18–19.

The plain way: Successive descriptions without corresponding word forms at their endings.

What it does: The words have a matching shape and long-vowel pattern, even though they name different things: intertwined growth, groups of people, and doors. Al-Ṣābūnī includes these endings in what he calls السَّجْعُ الْمُرَصَّعُ, al-sajʿ al-muraṣṣaʿ, an embellished correspondence of sound. His comparison also includes maʾāban and aḥqāban in the later passage.^[6]

The effect: The recurring sounds give an audible continuity to the successive descriptions. This correspondence does not replace the words’ meanings: the gardens remain part of the provision, while the later words describe the judgment scenes.

Qirāʾāt: Recitation and Attributed Forms

The distinction here is between the received wording, differences in its performance, and other forms attributed in the exegetical and linguistic works. Al-Qāḍī’s account of the ten readings records no separate word substitution for verses 14–16, but it points to an applicable rule of pronunciation in ⁧الْمُعْصِرَاتِ⁩. That absence of a separate ⁧فَرْش⁩, farsh, entry does not mean that every reader pronounces every sound identically.^[1]

Al-Azraq’s pronunciation of the rāʾ

The rāʾ in ⁧مُعْصِرَات⁩ has fatḥah and follows an original kasrah on the ṣād. It therefore falls under the rule that al-Qāḍī gives for Warsh’s light pronunciation of rāʾ after an original kasrah. His introductory list specifies al-Azraq as the path from Warsh used in the work. This is a rule of performance within that path, not permission to substitute a different word or a claim about every path from Warsh.^[2]

⁧بِالْمُعْصِرَاتِ⁩: the bāʾ and its carriers

Ibn Jinnī records ⁧وَأَنْزَلْنَا بِالْمُعْصِرَاتِ⁩ for Ibn al-Zubayr, Ibn ʿAbbās and al-Faḍl b. ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهم, as well as ʿAbd Allāh b. Yazīd and Qatādah. Al-Samīn names ʿAbd Allāh b. Yazīd, ʿIkrimah and Qatādah; Abū Ḥayyān also includes ʿIkrimah alongside the five named by Ibn Jinnī.^[3]

Ṣāliḥ's narration from his father, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, preserves further distinctions. It gives Mujāhid the form ⁧بِالْمُعْصِرَاتِ⁩ and the explanation “wind”; it also attributes that form and explanation to Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما. Its entry for Ibn al-Zubayr رضي الله عنهما, however, prints ⁧مِنَ الْمُعْصِرَاتِ⁩. Thus Ibn Jinnī's attribution of bi- to him is not the wording printed in this other account.^[4]

The bāʾ changes the expressed relationship to “by means of,” but it does not by itself choose winds over clouds. Ibn Jinnī’s full argument in Q1 explains why the source of something can also be its means. The reading attribution and that grammatical argument remain separate questions.^[5]

⁧ثَجَّاحًا⁩: pouring with a different final consonant

The form attributed to al-Aʿraj is ⁧ثَجَّاحًا⁩, thajjāḥan, with jīm followed by final ḥāʾ. Al-Samīn states the final consonant explicitly. He then quotes al-Zamakhsharī’s explanation: ⁧مَثَاجِحُ الْمَاءِ⁩ are places where water pours, and ⁧يَنْثَجِحُ⁩ describes water pouring in a valley. The expression thus retains the pouring sense. It is recorded here as an attributed form; the received word remains ⁧ثَجَّاجًا⁩, thajjājan, with doubled jīm.^[6]

Connected meaning across the verse endings

The verse endings do not end the grammatical construction. Verse 15 gives the purpose of the rain in verse 14, and the gardens of verse 16 remain an object of “We bring forth” in verse 15. Al-Nasafī’s advice on ⁧الْوَقْف⁩, al-waqf, treats the longer sequence from “Have We not made…?” to alfāfā as continuous; he singles out awtādā and maʿāshā for pauses made out of necessity. This advice keeps the connected meaning in view; it does not mean that every scholar marks the pauses in the same way. Al-Naysābūrī, in Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān wa-raghāʾib al-furqān, marks “pouring abundantly” at the end of verse 14 as a place not to stop, keeping the rain connected with its purpose. At “entwined” in verse 16, he marks a stop after which the next statement can begin. The rain and its produce have then been described, and the passage turns to the appointed Day.^[7]