Surah At-Tin, The Fig

Surah 95 · 8 verses · revealed at Mecca

At-Tin opens with an oath by the fig and the olive, by Mount Sinai, and by this secure city, and it is eight verses long.

The opening has been read in several ways. Some commentators took the fig and the olive at face value, as two fruits; others read them as the lands where they grow, so that the four oaths name the places where revelation came — the land of Jesus, the land of Noah, the mountain of Moses, and the city of Muhammad. The surah does not settle it.

What it swears to is the sentence that gives it its fame: that God created the human being in the best of forms. And then, immediately, that He returned him to the lowest of the low — except those who believe and do good deeds.

The two verses together have supplied the starting point for most of what Muslim writers have said about human nature: neither noble by default nor worthless by default, but made high and capable of falling.

It closes with a question — what then can make you deny the judgement after this — and with the answer that God is the most just of judges. The Prophet is reported to have taught that a listener should say, yes indeed, and I am among those who bear witness to that.

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