Al-Shajara
Definition
Al-Shajara — the tree — refers to the specific tree in Paradise that Allah forbade Adam and Hawwa from approaching. Its exact species is deliberately left unspecified in the Quran, and Ibn Kathir reviews the various scholarly opinions — wheat, grapes, fig, and others — without endorsing any definitively, noting that the Quran's silence is itself instructive: the identity of the tree is irrelevant; the fact of the command and the test of obedience are everything. The tree represents the principle that a meaningful moral life requires a real prohibition — a boundary that costs something to observe and therefore makes the observation spiritually significant.
As understood in the classical tradition of Ibn Kathir and the scholars of his school.
Appears in
1 book in the library
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