All Of the prophet Muhammad's practices and utterances, outside of the Quran, cannot be automatically assumed as divinely inspired, and the Quran itself sometimes disapproves of some of his deeds and words 66:1,80:1-10.
The same is the case of other prophets, including as eminent as Ibrahim who, despite of being an illustrious example to emulate, immitating him does not include all aspects of his life deeds 60:4.
That is why the Quran repeatedly announces obedience to the messenger instead of 'Muhammad', albeit they are the same person. The 'message' remained connected to the 'messenger' and it was in this capacity of the 'messenger' that Muhammad needed to be obeyed. The Prophet forbade Muslims to write down anything other than the Quran. And effectively, the traditions weren't compilled until centuries following his death. The reason was that he used to make statements and deal with people in different ways that were the result of particular circumstances, which narrators might believe to be of universal and permanent bearing. From divine knowledge, the prophet Muhammad had only access to what His Lord granted him 6:50,7:203,72:26-7. That knowledge took the form of a divine scripture to
16:64"make clear to them that about which they differ, and (as) a guidance and a mercy for a people who believe".
Muhammad believed
7:158"in Allah and His words (the Quran)" this is why Allah tells us to "follow him so that you may be guided".
To follow Muhammad means to follow what was sent to him from signs and/or revelation
7:157"and follow the light which has been sent down with him".
This reflects in the hypothetical scenario of a people not having received a messenger, complaining that had they had one in their midst, then they would have followed God's signs, not necessarily the messenger
28:47,20:134"..O our Lord! Why did You not send to us a messenger so we would have followed YOUR SIGNS (not the messengers) before we were humiliated and disgraced?".
Again with the example of the qiblah, we are told to only follow Muhammad in what Allah has commanded him
2:143"and We did not make the Qiblah that you observed in the past except that We know who follows the messenger from the one who turns back upon his heels".
It is very compelling to read how the Quran says that it is itself the best hadith.
39:23"Allah has revealed the best HADITH, a book conformable in its various parts, repeating, whereat do shudder the skins of those who fear their Lord, then their skins and their hearts become pliant to the remembrance of Allah; this is Allah's guidance, He guides with it whom He pleases; and (as for) him whom Allah makes err, there is no guide for him"
45:6"These are the communications of Allah which We recite to you with truth; then in what HADITH would they believe after Allah and His communications".
Anything besides that best hadith, Allah tells us that the rightly guided are those people who use their brains and reflect over them, following only the best and discarding what is inapplicable or that contradicts the Quran
39:18"Those who listen to the word (qawl or saying), then follow the best of it; those are they whom Allah has guided, and those it is who are the men of understanding".
The Quran contains such warning because
31:6"of men is he who takes instead frivolous hadith to lead astray from Allah's path without knowledge, and to take it for a mockery".
These verses warning to keep the best hadith and discard all frivolous and counterproductive talks, useless and misleading narratives, provide clear evidence that idle tales were even being disseminated at the Prophet's time. If this was then already a problem reaching such levels that the Quran had to correct it, then how much worse did the problem potentially manifest after the prophet's death? It further tells us to investigate thoroughly any information of importance related by an untrustworthy source 49:6. It does not request the outright dismissal of the report based on the unreliability of the source but simply advises utmost caution in the authentication process of the narration itself which doesnt only include reliability of the transmitor but also of the information in light of certain established facts. This opens the way to the possibility that the source might be telling the truth despite its untrustworthiness.
Hadith scholars mostly stress on scrutinizing the narrator and do not give much importance to scrutinizing the content of the report. It should also be noted, a few verses down in 49:12 it warns not to harbour ill thoughts of others who have not shown through their words or deeds any misapropriateness or imorality. People should first and foremost think well of one another, abandon the kind of outright suspicion and ill founded inquisitiveness (with harmful objectives).
When a prophet of God, the last human capable of willfully sinning, asks for God's mercy not even following a sin, but out of fear of not performing an act of worship to its full extent, then how much more so should the regular believer be conscious of his shortcomings in regards to God?
This is the characteristic of the men of God, who never become complacent and arrogant, whether in their duties towards fellow men or towards God, especially so when they reach the climax of their power and glory and that before that point they were constant and steadfast upon the straight path regardless of their ordeals. Success instead causes them increase in spirituality and far sightedness in their dealings with men and their duties towards God. The prophet, and the Muslims through him, is told to do the following, after seeing the unfolding of the prophecy of entire victory
110:3"Then celebrate the praise of your Lord, and ask His forgiveness; surely He is oft-returning (to mercy)".
In addition to teaching man spiritual humbleness, this also conveys the idea that should one attain some victory, it should not lead to pride and vanity, but to remembrence of God and gratitude, as well as seeking ghafr/covering, protection from sins. Even if the prophecy proved true in the days of Muhammad, and even more so today as Islam is still spreading worldwide, a believer shouldnt be boastful about it as many Muslims usually are when speaking of the spread and success of their religion.
The prophet was therefore certainly not "uswa hasana" in how he ate (with the right hand because the left was used for relieving in cleaning oneself after), slept or saw the nature around him. Anyone is free to imitate his lifestyle and adopt his worldviews as found in extra Quranic writings, if one finds any personal benefits in doing so but that isn't a religious requirement nor relevant to it, and that is explicitly stated in the Quran itself.
With that in mind, when the prophet made deductions as related in the ahadith, pertaining to his natural environement, general causality and basic observation of certain phenomenon, it is only expected from him that they would fit what the ancients of his time would find "plausible". These views however, right or wrong, no matter how extraordinary they might seem in light of our current knowledge, have no bearing on the Quran itself, which is again, pledged to be fully protected. It would have been interesting to have had written records of how the previous prophets saw the world, as we have with Muhammad, and see who among them held the most "unscientific" personal views.
Just as Muhammad was uswa hasana, Ibrahim and the believers in his nations are called uswa hasana 60:4-6 and to follow the prophet 3:31 means to follow the revelation sent to him 6:106,33:2.
Muhammad and the Muslims are told to follow the way of Ibrahim, this can only be achieved through the Quran which is the reminder of his way 16:123,4:125,3:95. It was indeed the Quran that guided Muhammad to the way of Ibrahim 6:161. The Quran also says to follow the pious, humble believers 31:15 and this again only means to follow them in their obedience to Allah's commands, in their belief in His revelation because
6:116"if you obey most of those in the earth, they will lead you astray from Allah's way; they follow but conjecture and they only lie".
The prophetic sunna is thus the manner in which the prophet applied the timeless ordinances of the Quran in his own time and place. It does not necessarily include his personal likes and dislikes, or particular recommendations which in the vast majority of cases the prophet himself never claimed were inspired.
He gently declined eating a roasted lizard out of personal taste, leaving those around him to freely eat as they wished.
Certain of his own standards of body hygiene, like trimming the mustache, letting the beard grow, using the toothstick, sniffing water into the nose, clipping the nails, washing the knuckles, removing hair from the underarms, shaving pubic hair, cleaning the private parts with water, rinsing the mouth etc, or the manner he slept, ate or dressed, all reflected the needs, culture and manners of a specific time in history.
As is explicit in the Quran, the divine protection of the carriers of the revelation pertains strictly to the revelation itself. But in everyday affairs, the messengers, who are still humans endowed with freewill and thus the potential, if not to sin due to their heightened level of spiritual awareness, to make mistakes, they are left to their own devices in their everyday lives to fight off the assaults of evil forces.
No prophet was in a constant state of communication with the divine realm. The hadith and Quran itself speak of long periods where revelation had stopped, and the subsequent tauntings of his enemies on the issue, the questions of his followers and his anxious anticipation.
The Quran never came to correct the prophet's worldviews in terms of knowledge of nature and general causality, neither of his contemporaries but rather guide him and the rest of humanity through him, to the most complete, advanced human spiritual knowledge. The divine protection therefore only pertained to the Quran which is the source of that perfect spiritual knowledge. The prophet was "uswa hasana" in his application of the Quran, just as following Jesus' way, as he is quoted saying in the NT, meant following his footsteps in his application of the Torah. "The way" of Jesus Jn14:6 is outlined in Lk10:25-28 where he commands strict observance of Jewish laws. In that passage from Luke he is asked about the conditions of salvation and the questionner quotes from 2 passages. The first is Lev19 which details certains laws like the observence of the sabbath and admonishes to
"Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the LORD".
The 2nd passage quoted by the questionner is the second is Deut6 which speaks of loving the One God and obeying His commandements
"keep the commands of the LORD your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. Do what is right and good in the LORD's sight..obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness".
As one can clearly see, one is justified before God, not by faith alone but by deeds too. Consequently the Nazarenes, Jesus' early group of small band of followers, observed all Jewish customs outlined in the Torah but differed from Jews in that they recognized Jesus as the Messiah.
The Nazarenes grew among the Israelites but persecutions forced them to go into hiding, with Paul playing a central role in their persecution prior to his convertion. After he joined their ranks, he started influencing the group leaders, namely Peter and James, to reach out to Gentiles. With more non-Jews entering the fold, many Jewish customs were abandonned Acts15:1-29 and the Nazarenes who were centered in Jerusalem gradually became isolated.
The main Christian movement started looking up to Paul for leadership, instead of Jesus' brother James, a strict observer of Jewish Law and considered as Jesus' successor in non-canonical Gospels. With the establishment of Christianity as a state religion in Rome by Constantine in the 4th century, this small original band definetly fled Jerusalem, in the surrounding deserts and managed to survive outside Palestine as they are mentionned by Jerome upto 380AD to have lived in the Syrian desert. Among them the Ebionites (who claimed to descend from the original Jewish disciples led by James) and Elchasites who rejected Paul as a charlatan and his teachings as falsehood, as well as the Zadokites, Essenes, Rechabites, Sabeans, Mandaeans etc. They had their own writing which they considered scripture, composed of an oral tradition attributed to Jesus, and some HB books. Their writings are known, among others as Gospel of the Nazareans, Gospel of the Hebrews and Gospel of the Ebionites. They would later write that Paul was a false apostle who taught heresy based on the fact he was a failed convert who was disappointed with Judaism and therefore motivated to teach against its laws (circumcision, kashrut, etc..). Unfortunately the group that opposed them and their practices gained more converts, obviously as it appealed much more to non-Jews, more particularily the hellenized Romans and Greeks.
The Nazarenes and similar groups were inevitably marginalised while the more and more dominant groups decided what the Church’s organizational structure would be, as well as its official creeds, or which books would be accepted as Scripture. The group that became "orthodox", further sealed its victory, by the pens of early writers like Iraeneus Justin Martyr and Tertullian, claiming that it had always been the majority opinion of Christianity, Jesus and his apostles.
This uswa hasana in no way implies that the prophet was a perfect creation. For example, After describing their outstanding moral and spiritual qualities, the Quran nevertheless asks the prophets to keep seeking istighfar/protection (from sins), for themselves and their followers too 47:19 and several prophets are quoted throughout the Quran asking for ghafr 30:24,35,71:28. This way the Quran teaches an important lesson; when the foremost among God's servants are denied any sense of complacency, then how far should regular believers be from harboring a feeling of perfect righteousness or prideful accomplishment in front of God
53:32"therefore do not attribute purity to your souls; He knows him best who guards (against evil)".
The believer should keep in mind that only God is perfection and as a demonstration of his understanding of such concept, should constantly seek God's forgiveness for any shortcoming as well as protection for future potential flaws and blemishes. This concept is pervasive throughout the Quran, starting with the single most repeated sura, sura fatiha. This type of spiritual humility is requested even from those that perform the most commendable deeds of the religion, so that they never fall into arrogance and self-righteousness 73:1-20.
It was under this state of mind that the prophet implored his Lord for ghafr in this world, just as he will do in the hereafter 66:8. Some reports say he used to implore Allah for protection one hundred times every day, as he was commanded by the Quran itself.
And he used to do so even after 48:2 was revealed telling him his past, present and future sins are forgiven. He did so out of humility and to set the standard of modesty in face of divine perfection
"The Prophet used to offer night prayers till his feet became swollen. Somebody said, to him," "Allah has forgiven you, your faults of the past and those to follow." On that, he said, "Shouldn't I be a thankful slave of Allah?"
No human, no matter how close to Allah in terms of revelational experience, will ever be faultless. This verse 48:2 does not say what type of sin, intentional or not, major or minor, was commited by the prophet. No indication of major sins, let alone intentional, are found concerning the prophet, anywhere in the hadith corpus or the Quran. Yet we find the Quran reproaching him even the slightest unfitting action for a man of his standing, actions which none would find problematic.
This is the etiquette that Islam has taught to man. A man might have performed the highest possible service to Allah's Religion, might have offered countless sacrifices in its cause, and might have exerted himself extremely hard in carrying out the rites of His worship, yet he should never entertain the thought that he has fulfilled the right his Lord had on him wholly, the Sustainer who maintains him and the universe at each instant. Rather he should always think that he has not been able to fulfill what was required of him.
This reveals an important point, something the prophets have always been aware of as seen in their constant prayers for forgiveness and protection, the inherent imperfection of humans, their shortcomings in the face of divine perfection. One should therefore never feel self-righteous or self-sufficient in any endeavour.
This was an epic Muslim victory and defeat of the warmongerers.
The defeat the Jews had suffered at the battle of the Trench, where they had allied with the near totality of the Arab pagan tribes for the purpose of exterminating the Muslims, did not deter them. They were making preparations behind their settlements of Khaybar and the gardens of Fadak where 14000 of them lived inside 7 well fortified strongholds, for a final showdown with the Muslims.
Their chief, Yusayr ibn Razam, joined with the Arab tribe of Ghatfan, along with the banished Jewish tribes of Nadir and Qaynuqa that were allowed, by the prophet, despite their former treacheries, to find refuge within the fortress with their Jewish brethren.
A little prior to the battle, the prophet authorized the assassination of Abu rafi'. The Khazraj tribe asked for the Prophet’s permission to kill him. Permission was granted provided that no women or children would be harmed, an instruction that was respected despite Abu Rafi's wife almost foiling the attempt. This happened prior to the siege of Khaybar, where he was mercifully allowed to remain following the defeat of the Jewish-Meccan alliance that nearly decimated the Muslims at the battle of the Trench. Abu rafi' kept on actively inciting the Muslims' enemies from within the fortress. Wars were started and innocent people lost their lives because of such incitements. The prophet thought that such a move would dissuade the people of Khaybar from pursuing their belligerent attitude but it did not.
To demonstrate their strength, Ghatfan captured 20 camels of the Prophet after killing their herdsman and capturing his wife. Their intriguing and use of their wealth to incite tribes against the Muslims left the prophet Muhammad with no choice but to put an end to their machinations and betrayals. Leaving them to freely behave in that way and slowly build up their opposing alliances would again put the Muslim survival at risk, just as they had almost caused the extermination of the Muslim community in the previous battle of the Trench.
Ibn Ishaq reports that when the prophet first arrived at Medina he invited the peaceful Jews of Khaybar to Islam with a letter, which after reminding them of the prophetic history and how he fits in it, does not put any blame on them if they sincerely reject his call
"I adjure you to tell me if you find in that revelation which Allah sent down to You, that you should believe in Muhammad. If you cannot find that in your scripture, no displeasure will fall on you. Guidance will be distinguishable from error, and I invite you to Allah and to His prophet".
This call, from which they arent liable in case of rejection after sincerely and objectively considering the prophet's message, in light of their own scriptures, was made at a time where they had not yet displayed the machinations, war incitements and enemy alliances they would actively participate in a few years later against the Muslims at the battle of the Trench. A few years later then, as he reached the fortress and to make sure that he would not inadvertently cause innocent Muslim casualties, who would have accepted the invitation he had made a few years back in times of peace, he waited for the sound of the morning call to prayer. This was a common practice of the prophet which he had done in other cases
"Whenever the Prophet went out with us to fight (in Allah's cause) against any nation, he never allowed us to attack till morning and he would wait and see: if he heard Adhan he would postpone the attack and if he did not hear Adhan he would attack them".
When the time came and the call to prayer wasnt heard, the green light was given to attack and to apply the unalterable divine law of retribution, as amply demonstrated in both their scriptures and the Quran. Whenever a messenger is sent to a people with an undeniable manifestation of the truth, and that the people reject it knowingly and attempt to kill him, then they are destroyed either by a heavenly disaster or by the hands and swords of the prophet and his partisans. Those believers and their prophet are then are then made their successors in the land. This is an unquestionable pattern in the semitic prophetic history.
When Ali spearheaded the assault he asked the prophet on which basis (not that there were no basis, rather which among the basis) should he fight them, the prophet replied, on the basis of that very divine law alluded to earlier
"O Messenger of Allah, on what basis should I fight the people?” He said: “Fight them until they bear witness that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. If they do that, then they have protected from you their blood and their wealth, except for a right that is due, and their reckoning will be with Allah".
Again, a very important point to reiterate, these Jews were peacefully invited to Islam many years back and were never bothered for their refusal to accept it. The prophet only engaged them in battle when they initiated hostile activities against him and the Muslim community. It is the mercy of the prophet that, despite having full authority of applying the divine penalty for continuously rejecting a prophet's call, in addition attempting to murder him and his followers, gave them nevertheless the option of surrendering to the divine law and walk free. This also shows that the Muslims' priority in their case was not their wealth rather the application of the divine law. Yet they still refused, just as they had in the past stubbornly and arrogantly rejected prophets from their own people telling them to adhere to their own books.
They were thus forcefully subdued for 2 completely legitimate reasons, first their wordly crimes, and then the transgression of rejecting a prophet in their midst. It is to be noted, as said in the report, had they accepted Islam at that moment then it would have only warded off the divine wordly destruction from them but not their moral accountability before God for their past crimes.
As a quick side note, before getting into the details of that battle, it would be appropriate to compare the progressive manner that inevitably led the prophet Muhammad finally engaging to war with the settlement of Khaybar, and the Jews' own standards of behavior in wars. Along with the known, compulsory genocidal warfare, during which no atrocities towards men, women, children, cattle and plants may be spared, there are laws relating to optional warfare, for the sole purpose of Israel's "national glory" as labelled by their rabbis. In such cases, any random nation the Israelites arbitrarily choose, and set themselves out to conquer can either be "peacefully" submitted, resulting in the enslavement and taxation of its population, or in case of their rejection of the "peace offer", a military subjugation resulting with the execution of all adult males, the capture as spoils of war of their women, children, and livestock
Deut20:10-14"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby".
In addition, should it be necessary to completely subdue that nation
2Kings3:19"you shall fell every good tree, and you shall stop up all springs of water, and you shall clutter every good field with stones".
In the land of Canaan, those natives that werent driven out or exterminated as per the Torah's injunctions during the invasion, were subdued into slavery Josh17:13. Their descendants suffered the same fate under Solomon's rule 1Kings9:20-1. After all and as stated in both the HB and the Talmudic writings (Eleazar ben Shammua) , the purpose of creation and the reason why the heavens and earth are maintained is for the chosen race to observe Torah. That is what the Quran would have looked like, and how it would have instructed its people to behave towards the foreign nations and the weak that come under their possession, had it been penned by the ancients of its time to whom such attitude was regarded as expected and acceptable.
At Khaybar it was a different story, thank God not in anyway comparable to the Jews' own standards.
A detachement of above 1000 men was sent to their fortresses. It took the Muslims 20 days of siege and several assaults led by Abu Bakr then Umar and finally Ali who vaillanty pierced the fortress and inflicted heavy casualties in the Jews and pagan ranks. After their defeat, the tribes of Bani Nadir and Qaynuqa were expelled and over those that remained, Muhammad proposed putting their own chief Yusayr ibn Rizam as Governor of Khaybar over his fellow Jews. In exchange he had to recognize the Prophet's legislative authority, not religious, he was allowed to keep his and his people's religion. He in addition was to ensure that none among his people would ever again engage in hostilities or stir up anyone against the Muslims. He accepted but on his way back to Khaybar where he was escorted with his 30 men and some armed Muslim men, he regretted his decision and attacked the Prophet's messenger, killing him. Followed a heavy fight from which no Muslim died and all Jewish soldiers were killed except 1 who escaped.
With the collapse of their last fortress, the Jews did not pose any more threat to the Muslims. Those that were expelled had their immovable properties confiscated and redistributed to the homeless among Muslims, who still had no dwelling places since their migration from Mecca. Those that were allowed to stay, remained on the condition that they could be expelled anytime should they return to treachery, desire for war or instigating others against the Muslims. They could keep their property but in exchange had to provide the Muslims with part of their crops, they had to relinquish their insularity and participate in the life of the whole community with the rights and obligations that naturally ensue.
Following the death of Yusayr ibn Rizam, another Jew, Ibn Rawahah was placed as governor. This is the prophet's mercy, as a chief of state and having that community entirely subdued to him, did not place a Muslim nor a tyrant above them. Instead, he instructed the Jews be allowed free practice of their religion. Now the believers had inherited under divine sanction their lands and wealth just as other unrighteous people's possessions were entirely given to them as spoils
Neh9:25"And they captured fortified cities and fat soil, and they inherited houses full of all good, hewn cisterns, vineyards, and olive trees, and fruit trees in abundance, and they ate and were sated, and they became fat, and they enjoyed pleasures with Your great goodness".
The Ishmaelites and their prophet however did not behave anywhere remotely like the Israelites and their prophets did whenever the lands of their enemies were granted to them by God, disregarding all ethics of war and humanitarian principles.
What is this typical Muslim terminology "Allahu Akbar" and in which cases should it be used? In Islam this phrase is one of the supreme affirmation of strict monotheism. The HB for example doesn't teach strict monotheism but rather a mix of monolatry and monotheism, with an evident inclination towards the former.
While the Quran unequivocally dismisses other deities as inert, senseless and powerless pieces of wood or stones, fabricated lies incapable of removing or modifying an affliction or benefiting those worshiping them, interceding for them, treats them as figments of a corrupt mind's imagination, false conjectures attributed to real or imaginary entities etc, the HB does not speak of false deities that way.
This is reflected in the many biblical texts exhorting the Israelites not to follow other gods, lesser in greatness than the God of Israel 2Chr2:4, a tacit acknowledgement of the existence of those deities. For example in Judges11:24, Jephtah tries to resolve a territorial dispute by telling the Ammonites that the land of Israel had been given to the Israelites by YHWH, while their lands had been given to them by their god Chemosh.
When the Quran urges the believer to proclaim God's greatness (takbir/Allahu akbar) it firstly is in relation to His mastery over all things known and unknown, concrete and abstract. It isnt in relation to other, lesser deities, but in terms of any innovation or description, whether consisting in giving Him non-existing partners, children, behavior etc anything that may compromise His perfect attributes, His being above any likeness 17:111,56:74,87:1.
Besides this primary monotheistic connotation, it may be uttered in all kinds of wordly situations if the purpose is to express God's supreme control, the establishment and prevailing of the divine will. Although what constitutes the true divine will is a matter of personal interpretation sometimes. This opens the door to misusing the phrase to inappropriate situations and by unworthy people.
In answer to the video "Bees Make Honey in the Bodies - Scientific Miracles of the Quran Ep. 8"
16:69"Then eat of all the fruits (thamaraat) and walk in the ways of your Lord submissively. There comes forth from within it a beverage of many colours, in which there is healing for men; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who reflect"
The Arabic for fruit in the sense of apples, oranges etc. is faakiha as in 38:51,43:73,44:55 etc.
Thamaraat (plural) comes from the root TH-M-R and it means the product of the tree of fruit and otherwise. It is conceptually used to point to any product of anything. The verb is athmara (to produce) as in 6:141 where we are told to eat from the tree's product (thamarihi) when it produces (athmara). The word implies that what the tree produces are fruits but it does not mean fruits in every context it is used.
Here are a few examples from the Quran; -14:37,28:57 (any type of product of the earth that can be used to sustain human life) -2:25 (the product of one's good deeds in heaven) -2:155,18:42 (the product of one's effort or the wealth) -7:130 (the ruining of Pharaoh's crops/earth product) -2:266,47:15 (all kinds of products, fruits or else found in heaven)
16:69 says that the bee eats from all kinds of PRODUCTS at-thamaraat (not from all kinds of FRUITS fakiha). Earth and plant products include flowers. Although, bees certainly do eat fruits as well if given the opportunity, the Quran here did not state so. It could have used the specific word for fruits/fakiha, as it does in many places. It has instead eloquently used a word that includes fruits, as well as other plant and earth products.
16:69 further says that there comes forth from within the bees a variety of beverages (shirab) containing benefits for mankind. The Quran here could have said 'asal as it does elsewhere 47:15 if it meant honey. But again, as with the use of thamaraat, it has eloquently avoided a restricted word and instead uses a broader term adapted to the honey making process. Honey begins as a type of beverage coming out of the bee's stomach. Bees first extract nectar through their mouth tube, then store it in their extra stomach, also called the honey stomach or crop. It is a pocket inside their abdomen, a little in front of the ventriculus, the other stomach they use to digest their food. Inside this honey stomach, the nectar mixes with enzymes that modify its chemical compostion. The resulting liquid is regurgitated and drank by another bee. The process is repeated until the partially digested nectar is deposited into a honeycomb.
At that point, bees start fanning the honeycomb with their wings so as to evaporate the water, resulting in honey. It is thus accurate for the Quran to say that a drink comes out from within the bee. Eventually, that drink, once processed becomes beneficial for humans.
As a side note, it is interesting that the gender used for the working honey bee, is the feminine, since the females are the ones collecting the nectar. All the verbs related to the bee are in the 2nd person feminine singular form (attakhidhi/take, kuli/eat, asluki/follow). This is because in the singular, the bee is in the feminine form nahlat. In the plural, it assumes the irregular masculine form nahel. It is common in Arabic to interchange between genders in the plural.
