From Herbals to Walled Gardens j 279279 279
This blessed tree is found only in countries where Islam is the prevailing religion. The
Prophet said, in speaking of it, “Honor the palm, which is your paternal aunt”; and
he gave it this name because it was made from the remains of the earth out of which
Adam was created. The date palm bears a striking resemblance to humans, in the
beauty of its erect and lofty stature, its division in two distinct sexes, male and female,
and the property which is peculiar to it of being fecundated by a sort of copulation.
If its head is cut off, it dies. Its flowers have an extraordinary spermatic odor, and are
enclosed in a case similar to the sac in which the fetus is contained, among animals.
If an accident happens to the marrow- like substance at its summit [the terminal bud]
the palm dies, just as we see a man dies when his skull is severely injured. Like the
members of a person, the leaves which are cut off never grow again; and the mass of
fiber in which the palm is surrounded offers and analogy to the hairs which cover the
human body.^28Qazwini uses the term “paternal aunt” for the date palm, emphasizing the female aspect
of the tree because the orchard consisted primarily of fruit- bearing trees. Nevertheless, he
unequivocally states that the tree is comprised of two sexes and that “a sort of copulation” is
required for fruit production. Recall that Theophrastus considered a sexual explanation for
pollination in date palms but rejected any direct comparisons between plants and animals
(see Chapter 9).
Arab scholars also went further than either Theophrastus or Aristotle by postulating an
evolutionary process to account for the Scala Natura. According to the Encyclopedia of the
Brethren of Purity, also known as the Epistles of Ikhwan al- Safa, written in the tenth cen-
tury, Allah initiated the Creation by forming the first vaporous elements, which coalesced
on their own to form rocks. Next, rocks spontaneously developed into plants, and plants
developed into animals, culminating in the evolution of humans. The date palm was con-
sidered a transitional form of plant because of two animal- like features: the existence of two
sexes and the fact that it was killed by decapitation.
A surprisingly modern Islamic interpretation of the relationship between science and
religion arose in the context of the question of date palm sexuality in one of the six major
Sunni Hadith,^29 called Sahih Muslim,^30 written in the ninth century. One day, the Prophet
was passing by a date orchard and noticed that the people were performing an unfamiliar
task. When he asked them what they were doing, they replied that they were sprinkling the
female flowers with male pollen to obtain fruit. The skeptical Prophet responded, “I do not
find it to be of any use.” When informed of the Prophet’s words, the people immediately
stopped pollinating the female trees. Later, upon being told that the yield of dates had been
drastically reduced that year because the people had followed his advice not to pollinate
their trees, the Prophet replied as follows:If there is any use of it, then they should do it, for it was just a personal opinion of
mine, and do not go after my personal opinion; but when I say to you anything on
behalf of Allah, then do accept it, for I do not attribute lie [sic] to Allah, the Exalted
and Glorious.^31