S3
The bee and honey
16:68–69 says the bee was "inspired" to build, to feed and to follow its paths, and that from it comes "a drink, varying in colors, in which there is healing for people".
وَأَوْحَىٰ رَبُّكَ إِلَى ٱلنَّحْلِ أَنِ ٱتَّخِذِى مِنَ ٱلْجِبَالِ بُيُوتًا وَمِنَ ٱلشَّجَرِ وَمِمَّا يَعْرِشُونَ٦٨ ثُمَّ كُلِى مِن كُلِّ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ فَٱسْلُكِى سُبُلَ رَبِّكِ ذُلُلًا ۚ يَخْرُجُ مِنۢ بُطُونِهَا شَرَابٌ مُّخْتَلِفٌ أَلْوَٰنُهُۥ فِيهِ شِفَآءٌ لِّلنَّاسِ ۗ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَـَٔايَةً لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ٦٩
Transliteration: wa-awḥā rabbuka ilā l-naḥli ani ittakhidhī mina l-jibāli buyūtan wamina l-shajari wamimmā yaʿrishūna · thumma kulī min kulli l-thamarāti fa-us'lukī subula rabbiki dhululan yakhruju min buṭūnihā sharābun mukh'talifun alwānuhu fīhi shifāon lilnnāsi inna fī dhālika laāyatan liqawmin yatafakkarūna
And your Lord inspired to the bee, "Take for yourself among the mountains, houses, and among the trees and [in] that which they construct. Then eat from all the fruits and follow the ways of your Lord laid down [for you]." There emerges from their bellies a drink, varying in colors, in which there is healing for people. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought.
Translation: Saheeh International
Key words
Awḥā ("inspired") is from waḥy, the word also used for revelation to prophets; here it means a guiding prompt placed in a creature. Shifāʾ ("healing") is indefinite in Arabic: "healing", not "the cure".
Feminine verbs
The commands to the bee (ittakhidhī, "take"; kulī, "eat"; uslukī, "follow") are grammatically feminine. Whether this says anything about the bees' sex is unclear: Arabic collective nouns like naḥl commonly take feminine agreement anyway (a grammatical point not checked in a named source). It is at least consistent with the biology (below).
Setting
Sura al-Naḥl is Meccan and is named after this passage. It continues the run of signs of provision in 16:65–67 (rain, milk, fruit).
Classical tafsir
Ibn Kathir on "inspired". "What is meant by inspiration here is guidance." The bee "is guided to make its home in the mountains, in trees and in structures erected by man". Its comb has "hexagonal shapes and interlocking forms" with "no looseness in its combs". It goes out to feed and "comes back to its hive without swerving to the right or left".
On "the ways of your Lord". Ibn Kathir reports two readings. Mujahid: these are routes the bees follow, "as they are easy for you". Qatada and ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Zayd: the bee follows them "in an obedient way". Ibn Jarir al-Tabari held that both are correct.
On honey and "healing". Ibn Kathir describes honey as "white, yellow, red, or of other good colors, depending on the different things that the bees eat", and reads the healing as honey's: "there is a cure in honey for diseases that people suffer from". He cites the hadith of a man whose brother had stomach trouble: the Prophet (pbuh) told him to give honey, and when the man came back saying it had not helped, he replied, in Ibn Kathir's translator's wording, "Allah speaks the truth and your brother's stomach is lying" (Ibn Kathir, citing al-Bukhari and Muslim; on sunnah.com, Bukhārī 5684 Ṣaḥīḥ (sound): "Allah has said the truth, but your brother's `Abdomen has told a lie"). The brother recovered after more honey.
Al-Jalālayn on "healing". Its main reading is that honey is "a cure for mankind from all ailments". It then reports other views: "it is also said that it means that it is a cure only for some ailments", "as indicated by the indefinite noun shifāʾun", "or that it is a cure for all ailments when supplemented with some other remedy", "or without these other remedies but with the resolve niyya to get better".
A second view. Tanwīr al-Miqbās, a commentary attributed to Ibn ʿAbbas, reads the healing as honey's ("in honey there ( is healing for mankind ) from illness"), and then reports a second view: "it is also said that this means: there is in the Qur'an healing for mankind" (surahquran.com, 16:69). Ibn Kathir does not mention this second view.
How it works
Text version
Nectar can contain up to 80 percent water. In the hive, bees beat their wings rapidly and bring it down to about 18 percent; the enzyme invertase, added as they carry it, begins splitting its sugar into simpler sugars (MSU Extension).
- "From all the fruits". Established Foragers collect nectar from flowers. "Nectar can contain up to 80 percent water" (Collins-Smith, MSU Extension).
- "From their bellies". Established Nectar is carried in "the bee's crop, or honey stomach", which can hold up to a third of the bee's weight. The forager adds an enzyme, invertase, "as they swallow it", which begins splitting sucrose into simpler sugars. Back at the hive, she "regurgitates her nectar load to special food-handling bees" (MSU Extension).
- From nectar to honey. Established Bees dry the nectar by "rapidly beating or fanning their wings in the hive", which "reduces that water content to around 18 percent" (MSU Extension).
- "Varying in colors". Established Honey's colour and flavour depend on the flowers the nectar came from, as Ibn Kathir also says.
- The foragers are female. Established (but not shown by the source read) Foragers are female worker bees; the MSU Extension account only implies it ("her nectar load"). A named source is needed.
- "Healing for people": what trials show.
- Burns. [Moderate to High for this one use] A Cochrane review (Jull et al. 2015; 26 trials, 3,011 participants) found that "honey dressings heal partial thickness burns more quickly than conventional dressings", by about 4.7 days (high-certainty evidence for this comparison). But for wounds overall it was "difficult to draw overall conclusions", and most of the evidence was of low or very low certainty.
- Coughs and colds. [Moderate] A meta-analysis in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine (14 studies) found honey reduced cough frequency (standardised mean difference −0.36; 95% CI −0.50 to −0.21) and cough severity (−0.44; −0.64 to −0.25) compared with usual care. The authors called for placebo-controlled trials.
Points of awe
A forager's honey stomach can hold up to a third of her body weight (MSU Extension).
Reflection
The bee's work is described in the verse as obedience. It is told where to live, what to eat and which paths to follow, and it does all three. Ibn Kathir sees the result in the comb itself: hexagons with "no looseness" in them, and a forager who "comes back to its hive without swerving to the right or left".
No single bee sees the jar. The work is shared among thousands of small lives, each doing its part faithfully, and the result is "a drink, varying in colors, in which there is healing for people" (16:69). Most good in the world is made this way: by many people doing small things well, who never see the whole.
The verse also uses a careful word. It says honey contains "healing" (shifāʾ), not that it cures everything. Al-Jalālayn reports a view that reads the grammar this way. Modern trials point the same way: real help for some things, not a cure-all. Gratitude for a gift does not require exaggerating it.
The passage ends with an instruction to the reader, not to the bee: "Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought" (16:69). The bee follows its Lord's ways without choosing to. A human being is asked to think, and then to choose.
Questions readers ask next
Does "inspiration" mean the bee receives revelation like a prophet?
No. Ibn Kathir explains it as guidance. The same Arabic root covers a range of meanings, from a prophet's revelation to an instinct placed in a creature.
Is honey a cure for everything?
The verse says honey contains "healing" (16:69), with an indefinite noun. Al-Jalālayn notes that it can mean healing for some ailments. Trials show benefit for some uses, such as burns and coughs (see "How it works").
What is the hadith about honey and the stomach?
A man's brother had stomach trouble; the Prophet (pbuh) told him to give honey, and when it seemed not to work he said, "Allah has said the truth, but your brother's `Abdomen has told a lie" (Bukhārī 5684 Ṣaḥīḥ (sound), narrated by Abu Saʿid al-Khudri). The brother recovered after more honey.
Does "from their bellies" mean honey is vomit?
Nectar is carried in the crop ("the bee's crop, or honey stomach") and is passed from bee to bee. It is changed by enzymes and drying, not digested (MSU Extension).
Why does the verse say "varying in colors"?
Honey's colour depends on the flowers, as Ibn Kathir notes: "white, yellow, red, or of other good colors".
Sources
- Saheeh International — 16:68–69.
- Ibn Kathir, Tafsir (abridged English), on 16:68, https://surahquran.com/tafsir-english-aya-68-sora-16.html, and on 16:69, https://surahquran.com/tafsir-english-aya-69-sora-16.html; Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (English) on 16:69, same page.
- Susan Collins-Smith, "How honey is made", Mississippi State University Extension, https://extension.msstate.edu/blogs/extension-for-real-life/how-honey-made (no date on the page).
- Canadian Honey Council, "How to make a pound of honey", https://honeycouncil.ca/?p=633.
- Jull et al., "Honey as a topical treatment for wounds", Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (2015), as read.
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of honey for upper respiratory tract infections, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine (14 studies; PROSPERO CRD42017067582), as read — the page read did not show the authors' names, so they are not given here.
- Canadian Honey Council — Bee Facts
- Ribbands (1949)
- Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5684
- Al-Rāzī on 16:68–69