And it was also said: It is that which produces various kinds of vegetation; its plural is farādis.

“Lodging”: It was said to mean an abode. It was also said to mean what is prepared for a guest; that is, the fruits and delights of the Gardens of Firdaws were their hospitality. The meaning of “they shall have” is that this was so in Allah’s knowledge before they were created.

“Abiding therein, they shall not desire any change from it. (108) Say: If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even if We brought the like of it as further supply. (109) Say: I am only a human being like you, to whom it has been revealed that your God is but one God. So whoever hopes for the meeting with his Lord, let him do righteous deeds and associate no one in the worship of his Lord. (110)”

“Abiding therein, they shall not desire”: they will not seek “any change from it,” that is, a move to elsewhere. Ibn Abbas said: “They will not wish to leave it, as a man moves from one house, when it does not suit him, to another house.”

His saying, Exalted is He, “Say: If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord”: Ibn Abbas said: The Jews said, “O Muhammad, (1) you claim that we have been given wisdom, and in your Book it says, ‘Whoever is given wisdom has indeed been given much good’; yet you also say, ‘You have only been given little knowledge.’” So Allah sent down this verse. (2)

It was also said: When the words, “You have only been given little knowledge,” were revealed, the Jews said, “We have been given the Torah, and in it is knowledge of everything.” Thereupon Allah, Most High, revealed: (3) “Say: If the sea were ink.” Ink is called midād because it supplies the writer; its root meaning is increase and the coming of one thing after another.

Mujahid said: If the sea were ink for the pen, and the pen were writing, “the sea would be exhausted”—that is, its water—“before the words of my Lord were exhausted.” Hamzah and al-Kisa’i recited the verb “were exhausted” with the masculine prefix, since the verb precedes its subject, while the rest recited it with the feminine prefix. “The words of my Lord” means His knowledge and His judgment. “Even if We brought the like of it as further supply”: its meaning is that if all creatures were writing and the sea were supplying them, the sea would be exhausted while the words of my Lord would not be exhausted, (4) even if We brought an additional supply equal to the sea’s water in abundance. [And the word rendered “further supply” is in the accusative as a specification.] (5) Similar is His saying, Most High: “And if all the trees on earth were pens, and the sea, replenished thereafter by seven more seas, were ink, the words of Allah would not be exhausted.” (Luqman 27)

His saying, Exalted is He, “Say: I am only a human being like you, to whom it has been revealed that your God is but one God”: Ibn Abbas said: