“…his wife so that he might find comfort in her. When he had covered her she conceived a light burden and carried it about.” [al-Aʿrāf 189]—and we shall, God willing, return to this verse later.

In the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections it is related—through Zāʾidah, from Maysarah al-Ashjaʿī, from Abū Ḥāzim, from Abū Hurayrah—that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

“Treat women kindly, for woman was created from a rib, and the most crooked part of the rib is its upper portion. If you try to straighten it you will break it, and if you leave it, it will remain crooked. So treat women kindly.” (This is al-Bukhārī’s wording.)

The exegetes have differed about Allah’s words, “and do not approach this tree” [al-Baqarah 35].

• Some said it was the grapevine. This is narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, al-Shaʿbī, Jaʿdah ibn Hubayrah, Muḥammad ibn Qays, and al-Suddī, and al-Suddī also transmitted it from Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn Masʿūd, and a group of Companions.

• The Jews claim it was wheat, and this view is likewise reported from Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Wahb ibn Munabbih, ʿAṭiyyah al-ʿAwfī, Abū Mālik, Muḥārib ibn Dithār, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā. Wahb said, “Its grain was softer than butter and sweeter than honey.”

• Sufyān al-Thawrī narrated—through Ḥuṣayn, from Abū Mālik—that it was the date-palm.

• Ibn Jurayj transmitted from Mujāhid that it was the fig tree, and the same was said by Qatādah.

• Abū al-ʿĀliyah said, “It was a tree such that whoever ate from it would have to relieve himself, and there is no need for bodily functions in Paradise.”

This disagreement is of minor import. Allah purposely left the tree unspecified; had there been a benefit for us in knowing its exact identity, He would have named it, as He does in other places where a matter is left vague in the Qur’an.

The real question that merits resolution concerns the Garden into which Adam was admitted: was it in the heavens or on earth? The majority maintain that it was the heavenly Garden—the Garden of Refuge (Jannat al-Maʾwā)—in keeping with the plain sense of the verses and ḥadīths, such as His words, “And We said, ‘O Adam, dwell you and your wife in the Garden’” [al-Baqarah 35]. Here the definite article does not signal generality or refer to something previously mentioned in words; rather, it alludes to what is conceptually understood, namely the well-known Garden of Refuge established in the sacred texts. Likewise Moses (peace be upon him) said to Adam (peace be upon him), “What caused you to bring both yourself and us out of …”