Surah Ar-Rahman 55:11
سُورَةُ الرَّحۡمَٰن · Medinan · Verse 11 of 78
فِيهَا فَٰكِهَةٌۭ وَٱلنَّخْلُ ذَاتُ ٱلْأَكْمَامِ
Translation
with its fruits, its palm trees with sheathed clusters,
English translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
Meaning and reflection
'In it are fruit, and date-palms with sheathed clusters.' al-Biqa'i and Ibn Ashur note the loving specificity, 'dhat al-akmam', the palms whose fruit emerges wrapped in protective sheaths. The care is in the small engineering: the dates are packaged, protected, brought forth in stages. Ask yourself: I notice provision only in bulk, 'there is food', and miss the intricacy of how it arrives, each fruit designed, sheathed, ripened on a schedule. This verse slows me down to the level of a single palm-sheath and calls it a favour worth naming. When I next hold a piece of fruit, could I see not just food but design, a small, deliberate kindness engineered down to its casing?
Grounded in classical tafsir: Ibn Ashur, al-Biqa'i, al-Saadi.
Topics that discuss this verse
Surah Ar-Rahman 55:11 is discussed in 3 study guides on Maani. Each guide gathers the key verses, Arabic words and lessons of one Quranic topic.
Reflect on this verse
Open Surah Ar-Rahman 55:11 in Maani to reflect on it through the Five Lenses: its wording, its context, what it means for you, its connections across the Quran and its lessons, grounded in classical tafsir.