#Seed039: He Who Makes it Grow

Farming Principles from the Quran

We are taught the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was born in the month of Rabi’ al-Awwal during the Year of the Elephant. That lunar month fell on April, according to the solar calendar.¹ In fact, traditions and folklore surrounding the month of April throughout the Muslim world teach that the blessed rains of April are linked to the blessed birth of God’s Beloved ﷺ. As a farmer, the April rains sound like the blowing of a trumpet, heralding a seasonal resurrection. This Spring coincides with the end of the Holy Month of Ramadan, a month in which we deepen our kinship with the Quran. In light of having spent a month with the Quran, I wanted to share some verses that highlight principles of farming. Though there are numerous verses that mentions farming and land stewardship, I selected eleven excerpts that provide a foundation to contemplate the art and craft of farming. All of the selections were translated by Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, which can be found in his excellent translation, The Quran Beheld: An English Translation from the Arabic.²³ I included the references to the verses quoted for those who would like to see other translations or refer to the Arabic.

The Sower. Jean-François Millet. c.1850

Selected Verses

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And land have We outspread, and cast in it firm mountains, and made grow in it of everything composed in perfect balance;  
And made for you in it many a means to live, and given to your charge. (15:19-20)

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Or who created the heavens and the earth, and sent you down from the sky wondrous water aplenty;
—And We have brough forth with it a multitude of gardens of splendor, the mere trees of which could never have made grow—Is there any god with Allah?
But they are a people turned stubbornly away from what is right. (27:60)

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And on earth are many wholly different terrains lying next to each other; 
And lush arbors of grapes, and crops, and date palms that send forth several trunks or but one; 
All of it fed with one single water; 
And we make the fruits of some better to eat than other: for a people who can comprehend. (13:4)

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And it is He who looses the winds bearing glad tiding before His life-reviving mercy; 
Until, when they lightly take up heavy rain-laden clouds, 
We drive them to a land dead with drought, then send down water throughout it, and bring forth therewith all kinds of crops: 
Even so shall We bring forth the dead, that haply you may remember and heed. (7:57)

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And a mighty sign to them is the dead dry earth We have revived and brought forth from it wondrous grain, so of it they may eat. 
And made in it hosts of lush groves of all kinds of date palms and grapes, and made burst forth therein of springs. 
That they might eat of its fruits and what their own hands then prepare: 
Will they not even show thanks? 
Gloriously exalted beyond limit is He who created all pairs of beings entirely: and of what they do not know. (36:33-36)

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So let Man but look at his own food: 
That we have outpoured rainwater mightily down; 
Then cleft the sprouting earth an unheard-of cleaving;  
So have grown in it by stages great grain aplenty. 
And grapes, and greens for the plucking; 
And olives and date palms; 
And hosts of splendid encircled groves, their might trees entwined. 
As a long but passing enjoyment for you and your livestock. (80:24-32)

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Can they not have looked at the earth, and many a plant We have made grown therein of every gracious paired kind? (26:7)

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Then have you beheld what you till? Is it you who grow it, or We who invariably make it grow? 
Did We will, We had made it a ruined wrack of dried straw, and you had spent the livelong day forlorn: 
‘Verily we are stricken sore; 
'Rather, shorn of the very means of like!’ (56:63-67)

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And He alone has raised up mighty fruit-laden arbors, trellised and untrellised, date palms, and crops, each differing in its eaten yield; 
And olives and pomegranates, some just alike and other unalike: 
Eat of the fruit of each as it appears, and give due alms for it on the harvest day of its prime, and devour it not in prodigal waste: 
Verily He loves not those who exceed lawful bounds. (6:141)

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The remarkable similitude of those who spend their wealth in the path of Allah is like that of a single grain that pour forth seven bounteous ears of grain, in every ear a hundred grains; 
And Allah multiplies whole times over for whomever He wills; 
And Allah is bountifully vast, all-knowing. (2:261)

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And the striking similitude of those who spend their wealth earnestly seeking the lasting good pleasure of Allah, and out of determined resolve born of deep conviction from themselves, is like a lush orchard on a fertile rise that is struck by a downpour even a slight rain would do it well; 
And Allah well sees all you do. (2:265)

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To all the farmers and growers: Wa mā tawfīqī illā bi-llāh.

1. The Senegalese Shaykh, Ibrahim Abdullah Niassee al-Kawlakhi penned the following lines,

أكرم بشهر العجم
إبريل شهر الكرم
أكرم بأرض الحرام
مولد خير مرسل

How honored is the non-Arabic month,
April, the month of generosity,
When the Holy Land was blessed,
With the birth of the best of those sent by Allah.

For more, see The Rabīʿi Readings of Shaykh al-Islam al-Ḥājj Ibrāhīm Niasse (trans. Mustafa Briggs)

2. Readers unfamiliar with Quranic rhetoric may not be accustomed to the use of the first person plural. The Quran uses the royal “we” to denote a sense of grandeur and majesty. The “We” in this context is used by God who is speaking about Himself.

3. In One God, Many Names, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah argues that Biblical etymology shows that the name Allah and the Biblical God are identical. He writes, “Arabic is an ancient and exceptionally rich form of Semitic speech, closely related to Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac. Etymologically, Allāh comes from the same root as the Biblical words Elōhîm, hā-Elōhîm, and hā-Elôh (all meaning “God”) invoked by the Hebrew prophets and the Aramaic and Syriac Alāhā (“God”) used by John the Baptist and Jesus. Elōhîm derives from elôh (Hebrew for “god”), and Alāhā is an emphatic form of alāh (Aramaic/Syriac for “god”), while Allāh is connected to ilāh (Arabic for “god”). All three of these Semitic words for “god”—elôh, alāh, and ilāh—are etymologically equivalent.” (p.3) Nevertheless, Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller chose to transliterate God’s name, Allah into English.