miraculous a dominical art and so wise a Divine deed, all over the face of the globe and in the countless hearts and breasts of innumerable mothers of hundreds of thousands of species, in the same instant, the same fashion, with the same wisdom and the same care — this too constitutes a self-evident proof of God’s unity.

The Third Verse:

From the fruits of the date-palm and the vine you take sugar and fine nourishment; verily therein is a sign for a people possessing intelligence.36

This verse invites our attention to the date and to grapes, saying, “For those of intelligence, there is great proof, argument and evidence of the Divine unity in these two fruits. These two fruits yield nurture and sustenance, fresh and dry fruit, and give rise to most delicious forms of food; yet the trees that bear them stand in waterless sand and dry soil, and are thus miracles of power and wonders of wisdom. They are each of them like a factory producing sweet sugar, a machine manufacturing honeylike syrup, a work of art created with perfect order and sensitive balance, wisdom and care; hence anyone with a grain of intelligence will say on contemplating them, ‘The one who made them in this fashion may very well be the Creator of the whole cosmos.’”

For in front of our eyes each vine branch the thickness of a finger will hold twenty bunches of grapes, and each bunch will in turn contain hundreds of sugary grapes, each like a litle pump emitting syrup. To clothe the surface of each grape with a fine, delicate, thin, and colourful protection; to place in its delicate and soft heart seeds with their hard shells, which are like its retentive faculty, programme, and the story of its life; to manufacture in its stomach a sweetmeat like the helva of Paradise, a honey like the water of Kawthar; to create an infinite number of such grapes over the face of the entire earth, with the same care and wisdom and wonderful art, and at the same time and in the same fashion — this proves in self-evident fashion that the one who fulfils these tasks is the Creator of the whole cosmos, and this deed, requiring as it does infinite power and limitless wisdom, can be only His deed.