and their gardens. It is the very water He sends down from the sky and endows with blessing, so that He brings forth by it gardens of diverse fruits: white and black, red and yellow, sweet and tart and every shade between, each differing in benefit and species. By the same water He causes every kind of grain to grow—varied in uses, properties, forms, and measures. He then singles out the date-palm because of the lesson and proof it embodies, a sign that never escapes the thoughtful observer. And by that water He revives the earth after its death.

Then He says: “Such will be the Resurrection (11)” (Qaf, 11)—that is, just as He brings out of the earth fruits, produce, provisions, and grains, so will He bring you forth from it after you have been laid therein.

We have discussed this analogy, and others like it that appear in the Quran, in our book Maʿālim (1), where we unveiled some of the secrets and lessons they contain.

Next, exalted be He, He proceeds to establish prophethood in the finest manner: with wording that is both concise and utterly free of doubt. He informs us that He sent messengers to the people of Noah, ʿĀd, Thamūd, the people of Lot, and the people of Pharaoh. They denied them, so He destroyed them by various forms of ruin, thus fulfilling the threat His messengers had delivered to them should they refuse to believe. This constitutes a confirmation of those messengers’ prophethood—and of the prophethood of the one who reported these events without learning them from any teacher or reading them in any book, yet conveyed them in detailed accounts that match what the People of the Scripture possess.

The only objection that can be raised against this rests on sheer bafflement and obstinate denial of the self-evident: to claim that none of it ever occurred, or that the blows and misfortunes of time befell them just as they befall others. But anyone who poses such a question knows in his own soul that he is merely being willfully contentious