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Sura 13
Aya 3
3
وَهُوَ الَّذي مَدَّ الأَرضَ وَجَعَلَ فيها رَواسِيَ وَأَنهارًا ۖ وَمِن كُلِّ الثَّمَراتِ جَعَلَ فيها زَوجَينِ اثنَينِ ۖ يُغشِي اللَّيلَ النَّهارَ ۚ إِنَّ في ذٰلِكَ لَآياتٍ لِقَومٍ يَتَفَكَّرونَ

Muhammad Asad

And it is He who has spread the earth wide and placed on it firm mountains and running waters, and created thereon two sexes of every [kind of] plant;1 [and it is He who] causes the night to cover the day. Verily, in all this there are messages indeed for people who think!
  • Lit., "and out of all [kinds of] fruits He made thereon (i.e., on earth] pairs (zawjayn ithnayn)". The term zawj denotes, according to the context, either "a pair" or "one of a pair". Whenever the dual form zawjan is followed by the additional numerical definition ithnan ("two"), it invariably signifies "a pair comprising both sexes". Thus, the above phrase states that there are two sexes to every kind of plant: a statement fully in accord with botanical science. (Usually, the male and female organs of reproduction exist together in one and the same flower of a particular plant, e.g., cotton; alternatively, they are placed in separate flowers of one and the same plant, e.g., in most of the cucurbitaceae; and, in some rare cases, e.g., the date-palm, in entirely separate, uni-sexual plants of the same species.)