S27
Gardens and fruits watered by one water
13:4 points to plots of land side by side, vines and palms, "watered with one water", yet God makes "some of them exceed others in [quality of] fruit" — and calls this a sign "for a people who reason".
وَفِى ٱلْأَرْضِ قِطَعٌ مُّتَجَٰوِرَٰتٌ وَجَنَّٰتٌ مِّنْ أَعْنَٰبٍ وَزَرْعٌ وَنَخِيلٌ صِنْوَانٌ وَغَيْرُ صِنْوَانٍ يُسْقَىٰ بِمَآءٍ وَٰحِدٍ وَنُفَضِّلُ بَعْضَهَا عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ فِى ٱلْأُكُلِ ۚ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَـَٔايَٰتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَعْقِلُونَ٤
Transliteration: wafī l-arḍi qiṭaʿun mutajāwirātun wajannātun min aʿnābin wazarʿun wanakhīlun ṣin'wānun waghayru ṣin'wānin yus'qā bimāin wāḥidin wanufaḍḍilu baʿḍahā ʿalā baʿḍin fī l-ukuli inna fī dhālika laāyātin liqawmin yaʿqilūna
And within the land are neighboring plots and gardens of grapevines and crops and palm trees, [growing] several from a root or otherwise, watered with one water; but We make some of them exceed others in [quality of] fruit. Indeed in that are signs for a people who reason.
Translation: Saheeh International
Sura al-Raʿd is Medinan in the Tanzil classification.
Setting
The verse before speaks of the spread-out earth, mountains, rivers, fruits in pairs, and night covering day, ending "Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought" (13:3). 13:4 narrows the view from the whole earth to a single landscape of neighbouring fields.
Whom it addresses
"A people who reason" — anyone willing to think about what they see.
Key words
Qiṭaʿun mutajāwirāt ("neighboring plots"). Ṣinwān ("several from a root"): plants growing as several trunks from one root; ghayru ṣinwān ("or otherwise"): single trunks. Al-ukul ("[quality of] fruit"; literally "what is eaten"). The bracketed words are the translator's.
See also: 13:3 , 6:99 , 6:141
Classical tafsir
Ibn Kathir. The plots are "next to each other, some of them are fertile and produce what benefits people, while others are dead, salty and do not produce anything." Ṣinwān "means, growing into two or three from a single stem, such as figs, pomegranate and dates", and ghayru ṣinwān "means, having one stem for every tree, as is the case with most plants." The point: "all these variances and complex diversities are watered by the same water", and "Therefore, there are differences between plants and fruits with regards to shape, color, taste, scent, blossoms" and the shape of their leaves.
A hadith Ibn Kathir cites. Abu Hurayra (ra) reports that the Prophet (pbuh), on "some of them We make more excellent than others to eat", named kinds of dates: "The Daqal, the Persian …, the sweet, the bitter" (Tirmidhī 3118 Ḥasan (good) — al-Albānī; Ḍaʿīf (weak) — Zubair ʿAlī Zaʾī). Al-Tirmidhi graded it ḥasan gharīb; al-Albani ḥasan; Zubayr ʿAlī Zaʾī ḍaʿīf (weak), and one narrator in the chain, Sayf ibn Muḥammad, was accused of lying (hadithunlocked). Because its grade is disputed, nothing on this page rests on it.
Al-Jalālayn. The plots are "some good some briny some of little yield and some fruitful"; "sinwān is the plural of sinw which are date-palms belonging to the same root but with many offshoots"; they are watered "by the same source of water".
Tanwīr al-Miqbās pictures "a bad, swampy land close to a good, fertile land", "watered with the rain or water from rivers."
Where they differ. Ibn Kathir and al-Jalālayn read the neighbouring plots as soils of different quality side by side; all three stress that the water is the same. They differ on ṣinwān: al-Jalālayn limits it to date palms; Ibn Kathir includes figs and pomegranates. Neither explains why the fruits differ beyond God's will; the verse leaves the reader to reason.
How it works
Each point is tied to "neighboring plots … watered with one water; but … some of them exceed others".
- Neighbouring soils really do differ. Established (for this case) In one eight-hectare vineyard at Oion (Araba-Álava, Basque Country), a team led by Olatz Unamunzaga (Neiker-Tecnalia) sampled "more than 190 points". The vineyard had "plots with soils of different characteristics", producing "significant differences in the production of the grape and in the quality of the must". Soil depths ranged from 25–80 cm (sandstone) to 85–100 cm (argillite); soils that held more water gave the most robust vines, while on sandstone the colour intensity was "up to four times greater than on the other soils" (CORDIS). This is one study of one vineyard, reported in a summary; the paper itself has not yet been consulted.
- "One water" does not mean equal water. Established (for this case) The same study found that "Hydric availability affected the unit production of the vine": rain or irrigation can be the same, while each soil keeps a different share of it. This matches the commentators' picture of good and poor soils side by side.
- Several trunks from one root. Established Date palms send up offshoots from the base. FAO: "Offshoot plants are true to type to the parent palm", while seedlings differ — "half of the progeny will be males and half will be females" and "no two seedling palms are alike". A palm produces offshoots "in a limited number (20 to 30 at most)". The verse's ṣinwān describes this growth habit; it says nothing about cloning.
Points of awe
In a single vineyard, soils a few metres apart changed how much grape a vine gave and how deep its colour was — on one soil, up to four times the colour intensity (CORDIS).
A date-palm offshoot is "true to type": the same tree, carried forward (FAO).
Reflection
Stand at the edge of a field and look across a fence at the next one. The same rain fell on both. The same sun crossed both. Yet one gives sweet fruit and the other gives sour, or little at all.
The verse makes this ordinary sight into a sign. It lists the things that are the same — the land side by side, the "one water" — and then the one thing that is not: "We make some of them exceed others in [quality of] fruit." The difference is placed with God.
Ibn Kathir slows down to name it: shape, colour, taste, scent, blossom, leaf. We pass these differences every day without noticing. The verse asks us to notice, and then to reason. Its last words are not "for people who know botany" but "for a people who reason".
Today we can describe some of the causes: a soil that holds water and one that lets it go, roots that go deep or shallow, the inherited nature of each plant. This does not empty the sign. A reader can still ask why the world is built so that one water gives a thousand flavours, and why that variety is so often generous to us. That question is the reflection; the verse invites it but does not answer it with a mechanism.
Questions readers ask next
Doesn't soil science explain the differences?
It explains some of the how: in one vineyard, soil depth and water-holding changed yield and grape colour (CORDIS). The verse's question is a different one — why the world is ordered so that one water gives such variety — and it leaves that to the reader's reasoning.
What does "several from a root" mean?
Ṣinwān: several trunks from one root. Ibn Kathir gives figs, pomegranates and dates; al-Jalālayn says date palms with many offshoots.
Is "one water" literally the same water?
The commentators read it as the same rain or river water (Tanwīr; al-Jalālayn). Soils then hold different amounts of it, which is part of why neighbouring plots differ.
Did the Prophet (pbuh) comment on this verse?
A report in al-Tirmidhi (3118) names kinds of dates for "some … more excellent than others to eat", but its grade is disputed (ḥasan to al-Albani, weak to Zubayr ʿAlī Zaʾī).
Sources
- Saheeh International — 13:3, 13:4.
- Ibn Kathir (abridged English), al-Jalālayn and Tanwīr al-Miqbās, on 13:4, https://surahquran.com/tafsir-english-aya-4-sora-13.html.
- Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3118, via hadithunlocked, https://hadithunlocked.com/tirmidhi:3118.
- CORDIS (European Commission), "Productivity and quality of grape vary according to plot of vineyard under cultivation", on Olatz Unamunzaga's study at Neiker-Tecnalia, https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/119888-productivity-and-quality-of-grape-vary-according-to-plot-of-vineyard-under-cultivation/pl.
- FAO, Date palm cultivation (Plant Production and Protection Paper 156), chapter on propagation, https://www.fao.org/4/Y4360E/y4360e09.htm.
- Al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, on 13:4
- Ibn Kathīr on 13:4 and 6:99
- A standard plant genetics or horticulture source on fruit flavor and terroir