'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful' His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "And a sign for them is the dead earth. We have given it life and brought forth from it grain, so from it they eat." "And We have made therein gardens from date palms and vines, and We have caused springs to gush forth therein." "So that they may eat of its fruit and what their hands have earned. Will they not be grateful?" "Glorified is He who created all pairs of that which the earth produces and of themselves and of that which they do not know." The word "sign" means: a mark of resurrection and the raising of bodies. The pronoun in "for them" refers to the disbelievers of Quraysh. Nafi', Shaiba, and Abu Ja'far read: "the dead earth" with a kasra on the 'ya' and a shadda. Abu 'Amr and Asim read it with a sukoon on the 'ya' lightly, and its revival is by rain. The majority of readers read: "its fruit" with a fathah on the 'tha' and 'meem'. Talhah, Ibn Wathab, Hamzah, and Al-Kisai read it with a dammah on both. Al-Amash read it with a dammah on the 'tha' and a sukoon on the 'meem'. Regarding the pronoun in it, one group said: it refers to the water which is implied in His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "from the springs"; because the meaning is: "what". Another group said: it refers to all that has been mentioned in summary, as if He said: "from the fruit of what we have mentioned." Abu 'Ubaidah said: it is like when a person mentions two or three things and then returns the pronoun to one and alludes to it, as Al-Azraq ibn Tarifah ibn Al-Amarrad Al-Firasiy said: (p-248) "He accused me of a sin of which I and my father were innocent, and for the sake of the one who is thin, he accused me." This interpretation in the verse is weak. The word "what" in His saying, exalted and majestic is He: "and what their hands have earned," Al-Tabari said: it is a noun conjoined to "fruit", meaning: and the eating occurs from the fruit and from what the hands have earned by planting and cultivation and the like. One group said: it is a source, and it was said: it is negating, and the meaning is: they eat from its fruit which is something their hands did not earn, but it is a blessing from Allah, blessed and exalted is He. The majority of readers read: "earned" with the pronoun 'he'. Hamzah, Al-Kisai, Asim - in the narration of Abu Bakr - Talhah, and 'Isa read: "did" without a pronoun. Then He glorified and exalted Himself in absolute glorification from everything that an atheist may attribute to Him or a polytheist may associate with Him. And "the pairs" are the types of everything, and His saying: "and of that which they do not know" is similar to His saying: "And He creates that which you do not know" [An-Nahl: 8].