Tafseer of The Rock · Al-Hijr · 15:22
And We have sent the fertilizing winds and sent down water from the sky and given you drink from it. And you are not its retainers.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The Qurʾān reciters differed over the reading of this word. The majority of the reciters read وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ (with the plural: the winds), while some of the reciters of Kufa read it as وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيحَ لَوَاقِحَ (with the singular: the wind). The meaning of this must be that the wind, although its word is singular, is plural in meaning -- hence one said لَوَاقِحَ. The sense of using a plural as an adjective for a singular noun resembles the usage of: arḍun sabāsib (a desolate land), arḍun aghfāl (fallow land), and thawbun akhlāq (a worn-out garment), as the poet said: "Winter has come and my shirt is worn out / a ragged thing at which the miser laughs." Thus do the Arabs treat everything that has a wide extent.
The Arabic philologists differed over the reason for describing the winds as lawāqiḥ (impregnators), whereas they are really mulqiḥa (impregnating) and not lāqiḥ (conceiving), since they impregnate the clouds and the trees. Some of the grammarians of Basra said: the winds were called lawāqiḥ as though the winds had conceived -- for in them there is good, so that they have, as it were, become fertile. Some of the grammarians of Kufa said that two meanings are comprised in it: the one is that the wind itself impregnates by passing over the dust and the water -- thus one says: rīḥun lāqiḥ, just as one says: nāqa lāqiḥ. The proof of that is that Allah described the wind of punishment with الرِّيحَ الْعَقِيمَ (the barren wind). The second interpretation is that the wind is described as lāqiḥ while it is mulqiḥ (impregnating) -- as one says: laylan nāʾim (a sleeping night) while the sleep occurs within it.
The most correct view in my eyes is: the winds are lawāqiḥ as Allah has described them, and they are at the same time lāqiḥa (conceiving, being impregnated) and mulqiḥa (impregnating) -- as ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd said.
Abū Kurayb related to us, saying: al-Muḥāribī related to us, on the authority of al-Aʿmash, on the authority of al-Minhāl ibn ʿAmr, on the authority of Qays ibn Sakan, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, concerning وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ: he said: Allah sends the winds and they carry the water; they drive the clouds forward, whereupon these flow as an impregnated she-camel flows, and then it rains.
Abū l-Sāʾib related to me, saying: Abū Muʿāwiya related to us, on the authority of al-Aʿmash, on the authority of al-Minhāl, on the authority of Qays ibn Sakan, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh: وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ: he said: Allah sends the wind and it impregnates the clouds; then He milks them and they flow as an impregnated she-camel flows; then it rains.
Al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad related to us, saying: Asbāṭ ibn Muḥammad related to us, on the authority of al-Aʿmash, on the authority of al-Minhāl ibn ʿAmr, on the authority of Qays ibn al-Sakan, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, concerning وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ: he said: He sends the winds and they carry the water from the clouds, then He milks the clouds and they flow as an impregnated she-camel flows. ʿAbd Allāh clarified that they are the lāqiḥa by carrying the water, even though they are the mulqiḥa by impregnating the clouds and the trees.
Another group of exegetes interpreted Allah's description of the winds as lawāqiḥ as having the meaning "mulqiḥa" (impregnating), where lawāqiḥ stands in place of malāqiḥ, as Nahshal ibn Ḥarrī said: "Let Yazīd be wept over: a needy man who pleads / and a deranged one, cast down by calamities" -- while he meant al-matāwīḥ (the things that cast down). And as al-Nābigha said: "Leave me to my wearying cares, O Umayma / and a night I struggle through with slowly moving stars" -- with the meaning of munṣib (wearying).
Mention of who said that:
Muḥammad ibn Bashshār related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī related to us, saying: Sufyān related to us, on the authority of al-Aʿmash, on the authority of Ibrāhīm, concerning وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ: he said: they impregnate the clouds. -- Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Abū Nuʿaym related to us, saying: Sufyān related to us, on the authority of al-Aʿmash, on the authority of Ibrāhīm, the same. -- Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq related to us, saying: Abū Aḥmad related to us, saying: Sufyān related to us, on the authority of al-Aʿmash, on the authority of Ibrāhīm, the same.
Yaʿqūb related to me, saying: Ibn ʿUlayya related to us, on the authority of Abī Rajāʾ, on the authority of al-Ḥasan, concerning وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ: he said: they impregnate the trees. I asked: or the clouds? He said: and the clouds too, they milk them until they rain.
Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: Isḥāq ibn Sulaymān related to us, on the authority of Abī Sinān, on the authority of Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit, on the authority of ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr, he said: Allah sends the mubashshira (herald) which sweeps the earth; then Allah sends the muthīra (rouser) which rouses the clouds; then Allah sends the muʾallifa (joiner) which joins the clouds together; then Allah sends the lawāqiḥ (impregnators) which impregnate the trees. Then ʿUbayd recited: وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ.
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ: he says: the impregnators of the clouds. And there is a wind that is a torment, and there is a wind that is a mercy. -- Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us, saying: Muḥammad ibn Thawr related to us, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatāda: لَوَاقِحَ: he said: they impregnate the water in the clouds. -- Al-Qāsim related to us, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: لَوَاقِحَ: he said: they impregnate the trees and milk the clouds. -- It was reported to me from al-Ḥusayn, he said: I heard Abū Muʿādh saying: ʿUbayd reported to us, saying: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk saying concerning وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ: the winds are sent by Allah to the clouds to impregnate them; they then become full of water.
Abū Kurayb related to us, saying: Aḥmad ibn Yūnus related to us, saying: ʿĪsā ibn Maymūn related to us, saying: Abū l-Maḥzam related to us, on the authority of Abī Hurayra, he said: I heard the Prophet ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam saying: "The South Wind comes from the Garden (janna), and it is the wind of the lawāqiḥ, and it is the wind which Allah -- the Exalted -- has mentioned in His Book, and in it there are benefits for the people." Abū al-Jamāʾihir al-Ḥimṣī or al-Ḥaḍramī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān related to me, saying: ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Mūsā related to us, saying: ʿĪsā ibn Maymūn Abū ʿUbayda related to us, on the authority of Abī l-Maḥzam, on the authority of Abī Hurayra, he said: I heard the Prophet ṣallallāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam -- and he mentioned the same.
His word فَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً فَأَسْقَيْنَاكُمُوهُ: the Exalted -- exalted be His renown -- says: We sent down rain from the heaven and gave you that rainwater to drink for your land and your cattle. If the meaning were that We sent it down so that you might drink it, one would say: fasaqaynākumūh. For the Arabs say: saqaytu al-rajul māʾan (I gave the man water to drink), without the hamza, when it was for his own drinking; and when one provides water for his land or cattle to drink, one says: asqaytuhu, with the hamza. Likewise when one supplicates for it: asqaytuhu wa-stasqaytuhu, as Dhū l-Rumma said: "I halted at the ruins of Mayya with my she-camel / and did not cease weeping at them and speaking to them / and praying for them for rain, until the stones, from what I uttered / almost spoke to me, and her playgrounds."
His word وَمَا أَنتُمْ لَهُ بِخَازِنِينَ: he says: you are not guardians of the water that We have sent down from the heaven and given you to drink -- for that is in My hand and belongs to Me, I give it to whom I will and withhold it from whom I will. As Aḥmad related to us, saying: Abū Aḥmad related to us, saying: Sufyān: وَمَا أَنتُمْ لَهُ بِخَازِنِينَ: he said: nor as withholders.
