The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 481
PT. 14 AN-NAHL CH. 16 وَمِنْ ثَمَاتِ النَّخِيْلِ وَالْأَعْنَابِ And of the fruits of the. 68 grapes, تَتَّخِذُونَ مِنْهُ سَكَرًا وَّ رِزْقًا حَسَنًا إِنَّ فِي whence you obtain intoxicating ذلِكَ لَآيَةً لِّقَوْمٍ يَعْقِلُوْنَ date-palms and the drink and wholesome food. Verily, in that is a Sign for a people who make use of their reason. 1868 "13:5; 16:12; 23:20; 36:35. pass from ignorance to knowledge'. The subtle process is something like this. The cattle eat grass, herbage, leaves of trees, etc. Of this faecal matter is formed in their intestines in the course of digestion. Part of that faecal matter becomes converted into blood which supplies the nutrients to form sweet and wholesome milk. Intelligent and reverential study of this conversion of grass or leaves of trees into milk in the bellies of the animals leads to the inevitable conclusion that the natural propensities and inclinations of man cannot lead him to the right path unless they are controlled and regulated by some heavenly machine which is Divine revelation. This verse affords one more evidence of the Divine origin of the Quran. The process the Quran has described of the formation of milk from faeces and blood was not known to man until very recent times. It was not known to the old commentators of the Quran. They have, therefore, greatly stumbled and erred in explaining this verse. For example, Zamakhshari, the well-known author of Al-Kashshāf, says that when food goes into the belly of an animal its lower portion forms the faeces, the middle portion milk and the upper part becomes turned into blood. The verse under comment, however, clearly, states that the matter of which milk is made passes through the forms of faeces and blood before it assumes the form of milk. This fact has been discovered by scientists only in recent times. The verse does not mean that man cannot produce milk synthetically. What is here meant is that he cannot produce it in such quantity that it may become an article of food. This is only possible in the way mentioned in this verse. Synthetically prepared milk can no more be a substitute for natural milk than artificial showers of rain are for natural rain. The verse also suggests that just as man can only corrupt food but cannot convert it into milk, even so can he only corrupt Divine teaching but it is not in his power to convert the defective laws devised by himself into eternal spiritual truths. 1689 1868. Commentary: The verse means to say that when things created by God remain in their natural and unadulterated form they