question about quran 16:68-69 to arabic speakers

[thirdwatch512]

salam alaikum,

now ok, i was reading from surah 16 today, and came across these verses. now i also looked up some commentary (tafsir) and read that belly(in verse 69) is referred to as plural.

so is this saying that bees have more then one belly? or is it talking about more then one bee here?

like is it talking about BEE'S(more then one) bellies, or is it saying a bee has more then one belly?

(sorry if this is in the wrong thread.. if it is, someone please move it!)

[جوري]

two amazing things about this sura can be summed up nicely in this paragraph

the Female Bee

In the 16th chapter (Surah an-Nahl 16:68-69) the Qur'an mentions that the female bee leaves its home to gather food. Now, a person might guess on that, saying, "The bee that you see flying around - it could be male, or it could be female. I think I will guess female." Certainly, he has a one in two chance of being right. So it happens that the Qur'an is right. But it also happens that that was not what most people believed at the time when the Qur'an was revealed. Can you tell the difference between a male and a female bee? Well, it takes a specialist to do that, but it has been discovered that the male bee never leaves his home to gather food. However, in Shakespeare's play, Henry the Fourth, some of the characters discuss bees and mention that the bees are soldiers and have a king. That is what people thought in Shakespeare's time - that the bees that one sees flying around are male bees and that they go home and answer to a king. However, that is not true at all. The fact is that they are females, and they answer to a queen. Yet it took modern scientific investigations in the last 300 years to discover that this is the case.

So, back to the list of good guesses, concerning the topic of bees, the Qur'an had a 50/50 chance of being right, and the odds were one in two.

source
now the verse speaks of different colors of honey that comes forth from the bees

كُلِي مِن كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ فَاسْلُكِي سُبُلَ رَبِّكِ ذُلُلاً يَخْرُجُ مِن بُطُونِهَا شَرَابٌ مُّخْتَلِفٌ أَلْوَانُهُ فِيهِ شِفَاء لِلنَّاسِ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لآيَةً لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ {69

}[Pickthal 16:69] Then eat of all fruits, and follow the ways of thy Lord, made smooth (for thee). There cometh forth from their bellies a drink divers of hues, wherein is healing for mankind. Lo! herein is indeed a portent for people who reflect.

koley here denotes the feminine as well as fa'asleky the second time it is mentioned if it had been a male as later suggesed by Shakespeare - it would have been kol not koley and fa'aslik

sobhan Allah

peace!

[thirdwatch512]

thanks for the response!

thee be is referred to in the Talmud as female too. it's interesting. insha allah!

now might i askthough.. in verse 69, is it saying that a bee has more then one stomach, or is it talking about more then one bee here? most english translations say their, as in it's talking about it in plural, but there's one version, shakir, that says It's, as in singular. do you perhaps know?

[جوري]

Yes I believe that is what you said before about (ahel 3ad) having been mentioned in Jewish scriptures citing an Islamic source to back that up out of all things, but no matter.. answer to come in subsequent post!

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[جوري]

I found this on the web

Q 16:68

وَأَوْحَى رَبُّكَ إِلَى النَّحْلِ

and your Lord (O Muhammd) inspired the Bee.......

Arabic word "Nahl" can mean "Bee" (singular) or "Bees" (plural) depending on teh context it is being used in,

أَنِ اتَّخِذِي مِنَ الْجِبَالِ بُيُوتًا

....that to take (her) homes from the mountains....

the Arabic imperative "ittakhidee" in the singular feminine in which the command is given to a female bee to take/build her homes in the mounatains and whatever else that follows in the verse,

وَمِنَ الشَّجَرِ وَمِمَّا يَعْرِشُونَ

.....and from the trees and from whatever (kind) of trellis.....

Q 16:69

ثُمَّ كُلِي مِن كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ


....then eat you (female bee) from all the benefits..........

Here again the female bee is being address to eat from all the benefits provided to her,

فَاسْلُكِي سُبُلَ رَبِّكِ ذُلُلاً

....so then travel you (female bee) through the paths of your Lord gently.............

She is told to travel though the paths of her Lord gently,

يَخْرُجُ مِن بُطُونِهَا شَرَابٌ مُّخْتَلِفٌ أَلْوَانُهُ فِيهِ

.....bringing out from her bellies a varied colored drink inside her.....

the clause now shifts explaining that from inside her bellies comes out a varied color drink. This also indicates that the female Bee has more than one belly or stomach.

شِفَاءٌ لِّلنَّاسِ

.......as a healing for mankind.......

The drink that comes out of her bellies is a healing for human beings. Now we know this drink is honey and the type of Bee spoken about is a Honey Bee,

إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآيَةً لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ


.....verily in that is indeed a sign for people who think

and here you have it, this is a sign is for those who think about its message,

We have learned numberous things here :

1) The Female Honey Bee is instructed by inpiration from G-d

2) The Female Honey Bee is who builds its homes

3) The Female Honey Bee has more than one belly in which the honey comes out from

4) The Honey is a healing for human beings


When it comes to the bee and the quran it's not just the word nahla that we're talking about here. the female implications occur many times. Not to mention that the quran told us that the bee has more then one belly something not known til recently.

WHAT IS A HIVE? A hive is the bees’ home. It is made mostly of wax. Worker bees can make wax from the bottom of their abdomens (bellies). They use their legs to shape this wax into the cells of their honeycomb or hive. Each cell is hexagonal or six-sided. The hive usually has several layers of cells. Some cells are just for baby bees. Near the baby bee section, there are cells for storing pollen. In other parts of the hive, there are cells just for storing honey. The queen stays in the hive for her whole life except when she flies off to mate. All the bees stay inside the hive at night to sleep. Hives may be inside hollow logs.
source

[جوري]

بُطُونِهَا

betooniha is the plural of belly so it is bellies baten is singular betooniha is plural..
hope that answers your query?

[جوري]

most english translations say their, as in it's talking about it in plural, but there's one version, shakir, that says It's, as in singular. do you perhaps know?

I have already translated to you about betooniha the plural from baten... which is belly in Arabic. So you won't need shakir-- however if you wished, You might want to read up on shakir and find our why he is different from other translators... he simply took the work of yusfali and made it modern, not necessarily accurate... but here I a native Arabic speaker already explained the difference I hope it was sufficient?

[thirdwatch512]

so it's bellies in plural? thanks!

now might i ask though.. is this referring to just one bee, or is it referring to bee's bellies in general?

[جوري]

it starts of singular as in-- "eat you female bee" it emphasizes the female status, since if when using the plural we'd use kolo not koly, the plural doesn't "engender" it covers both sexes and is common to use to denote women folk as well without it being misconstrued for one gender or the other, so in this verse in particular there is no mistaken the emphasis of her female status. . so in its exclusion Allah emphasizes her gender!
then we get to the yakhraoj min botoniha, which is the plural for bellies, other wise it would be batniha... so I'll leave you to understand what you may.. with this said
have a great evening..

here is something I thought would be interesting dealing with the interiors of the bee the inside of the bee

peace!

[جوري]

btw, I am not a Quranic scholar, I have only helped out linguistically, If any answer is unsatisfactory pls consult with a Muslim scholar.........
thank you

[kay106]

I found this on the web


WHAT IS A HIVE? A hive is the bees’ home. It is made mostly of wax. Worker bees can make wax from the bottom of their abdomens (bellies). They use their legs to shape this wax into the cells of their honeycomb or hive. Each cell is hexagonal or six-sided. The hive usually has several layers of cells. Some cells are just for baby bees. Near the baby bee section, there are cells for storing pollen. In other parts of the hive, there are cells just for storing honey. The queen stays in the hive for her whole life except when she flies off to mate. All the bees stay inside the hive at night to sleep. Hives may be inside hollow logs.
source

It is clearly that the worker bee is femanine right?

[FatimaAsSideqah]

Furthermore, in Arabic, verbs are conjugated according to gender. The gender used for the bee in the above verses is the female gender (fa’slukî and kulî), indicating that the bee that leaves its home for gathering food is a female bee. In other words the soldier or worker bee is a female bee. The working of the female honeybee as described in the above quoted verses of the Holy Quran are:

1- Building of hive
2- Collecting of nectar, new material for honey production
3- Making honey

All the above three functions are performed by female bees. The unique function of the male, more robust with big eyes, is to fertilize the young queen female bee. The male bees that fulfill this function are expelled from the hive by their females at the end of the summer and, as they are used to being looked after by their females, they then die of starvation.

At the time of the descent of the Quran, men did not know the details of the distribution of work among the bees living in a hive; they did not know that those actively working in the hive were females. In fact, in Shakespeare’s play, ‘Henry the Fourth’, some of the characters speak about bees and mention that the bees are soldiers and that they have a king. That is what people thought in Shakespearean times. They thought that the worker bees are male bees and they go home and are answerable to a king bee. This, however, is not true. The worker bees are females and they do not report to a king bee but to a queen bee. But it took modern investigations in the last 300 years to discover this.

They did not know that the function of producing honey and collecting nectar from fruits belonged to female bees. Therefore, it is interesting, indeed, that in listing the duties of bees, the Quran used the mode of conjugation in the Arabic intended for the female gender.

Hope this will be more clearly.