276 i Flora Unveiled
Overhearing his parent’s conversation, the infant Jesus looked up with a joyful coun-
tenance and said to the tree: “O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy
fruit.” Immediately, the palm “bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary,”
allowing Joseph and Mary easily to pick the fruit. Jesus then promised the date palm a place
in Paradise and further asked it to release a spring that was hidden in the earth beneath
its roots: “open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the
waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from thee.” Suddenly, a spring of clear, cold water
began to flow from the base of the tree, and the Holy Family refreshed themselves with fresh
dates and pure water before resuming their journey.
The Quran contains an alternative version of Mary’s encounter with the palm tree in
Sura 19:21– 26. After the Annunciation, the newly pregnant and unwedded Mary, fearful of
rejection by her family and friends, “retired ... to a remote place” to bring the baby to term
and give birth. Eventually, her contractions began:
And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm- tree: She cried (in her
anguish): “Ah! would that I had died before this! would that I had been a
thing forgotten and out of sight!”
But (a voice) cried to her from beneath the (palm- tree): “Grieve not! for thy Lord
hath provided a rivulet beneath thee;
“And shake towards thyself the trunk of the palm- tree: It will let fall fresh ripe dates
upon thee.(b)Figure 10.11 Continued