27 Preface أَلَم تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ أَنزَلَ مِنَ السَّماءِ ماءً فَأَخرَجنا بِهِ ثَمَراتٍ مُختَلِفًا أَلوانُها ۚ وَمِنَ الجِبالِ جُدَدٌ بيضٌ وَحُمرٌ مُختَلِفٌ أَلوانُها وَغَرابيبُ سودٌYusuf AliSeest thou not that God sends down rain from the sky? With it We then bring out produce of various colours.1 And in the mountains are tracts white and red,2 of various shades of colour, and black intense in hue.Everyone can see how God’s artistry produces from rain the wonderful variety of crops and fruits-golden, green, red, yellow, and showing all the most beautiful tints we can think of. And each undergoes in nature the gradual shading off in its transformation from the raw stage to the stage of maturity.These wonderful colours and shades of colours are to be found not only in vegetation but in rocks and mineral products. There are the white veins of marble and quartz or of chalk, the red laterite, the blue basaltic rocks, the ink-black flints, and all the variety, shade, and gradation of colours. Speaking of mountains, we think of their “azure hue” from a distance, due to atmospheric effects, and these atmospheric effects lead our thoughts to the glories of clouds, sunsets, the zodiacal lights, the aurora borealis, and all kinds of Nature’s gorgeous pageantry.