Tafsir at-Tabari: Jami' al-Bayan - Dar al-Tarbiyah wa al-Turath Edition

a specific tree among the trees of Paradise to the exclusion of the rest of its trees, but they contravened what God forbade them from, and ate from it as God, may His praise be exalted, described them doing. And we have no knowledge of which tree it was specifically, because God did not establish for His servants any evidence for that in the Qur'an, nor in the authentic Sunna. So from where could that come? (1) And it has been said: It was the wheat tree, and it has been said: It was the grapevine, and it has been said: It was the fig tree, and it is possible that it was one of them, and that is a knowledge which, if known, its knowledge does not benefit the one who knows it, (2) and if an ignorant person is ignorant of it, his ignorance of it does not harm him.

The statement on the interpretation of His statement, exalted be His mention: {And do not approach this tree, lest you be among the wrongdoers}

Abū Jaʿfar said: The scholars of the Arabic language differed regarding the interpretation of His statement: "And do not approach this tree, lest you be among the wrongdoers".

Some of the Kufan grammarians said: The interpretation of that is: And do not approach this tree, for if you approach it, you will be among the wrongdoers. So the second part became in the position of the apodosis of the conditional. And the apodosis of the conditional is governed by its first part, like your saying: "If you stand, I will stand", so you make the second jussive by the jussive of the first. And likewise His statement "lest you be", when the fāʾ occurred in the position of the condition of the first, it was made subjunctive by it, and it was rendered

(1) In the manuscript is contrary to what is in the printed edition, and this is its text "And we have no knowledge of which of those it was. And it has been said it was the wheat tree...", as if the copyist dropped a line so the speech became disjointed. And it was in the printed edition: "So how does that come to whoever comes" with the addition of his statement "whoever comes" and it is apparent that the corruption is old, for Ibn Kathir transmitted this text of al-Tabari in his Tafsir 1:143 and deleted his statement: "So how does that come", and I have concluded that the correct view is the deletion of "whoever comes", so that the question is focused on how the knowledge of this tree comes, and there is no evidence for it in the Qur'an nor in the authentic Sunna. As for the sentence as it came in the printed edition, it is corrupt and corrupting of what al-Tabari intended.
(2) In the printed edition: "And that is if a scholar knew it, it would not benefit the scholar...", and I established what is in the manuscript and Ibn Kathir (1:143).

Translation · EN

Notes