Древо вечности
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Древо вечности
- Davitashvili, Ana, “The tree of eternity”, in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: Johanna Pink, University of Freiburg.
- The tree of eternity
The tree of eternity (shajarat al-khuld) is a tree in the Qurʾānic depiction of paradise which can grant Adam and his spouse immortality or make them like angels, and from which God has forbidden them to eat. The tree of eternity is explicitly mentioned by that name only once in Q 20:120. It is further alluded to in Q 2:35 and 7:19–20 as “this tree” and in Q 7:22 as “that tree.” All these appearances relate to the narratives surrounding the expulsion of Adam and his spouse from paradise. In Q 20:120, Satan directs them to the tree of eternity with the promise of “a dominion that shall not perish.” In Q 2:35 and 7:19, God warns Adam not to approach and eat from “this tree” and thus become a wrongdoer. In Q 7:20, Satan is again the one to point out the tree that is forbidden by God because it could cause Adam and his wife to become angels or immortal. As the first couple tastes from the tree in Q 7:22 and their “shame” is revealed to them, God also repeats His warning that has He not prohibited them “that tree” before. As a result of eating from the tree of eternity and transgressing the command of God, Adam and his spouse are expelled from paradise to earth, yet are immediately forgiven by God. Instead, humanity can indeed be granted immortality and access to paradise if they follow God’s guidance (hudā) when it comes to them, according to Q 2:38 and 20:123.
Although it makes sense that the tree of eternity can bestow immortality upon human beings, it is obscure why Satan promises the first couple a dominion (mulk) that shall not pass away in Q 20:120. Scholars have made different attempts to solve this interpretational issue: Joseph Witztum argued for a mistake or a playful adaption of “angels” (malak) in Q 7:20 to create a new meaning (Witztum, 26). Angelika Neuwirth, however, rejected Witztum’s explanation by referring to Q 2:30, where Adam is presented as the viceregent (khalīfa) of God on earth (Neuwirth, 355) and thereby possesses sovereignty. Thus, the interpretation of mulk lacks scholarly consensus. It remains unclear how the tree of eternity relates to a dominion.
It is noteworthy that the exact number of paradisal trees and their attributes vary greatly between religious texts. The Qurʾān, as well as other Late Antique literatures, only mention one significant tree in paradise—either the tree of eternity or the tree of life—and this is the tree which grants immortality to human beings. Other literatures refer to two trees: the tree of knowledge of good and evil (which grants humans understanding) and the tree of life (which makes them immortal). The singular tree—the tree of life—appears in the Greek Apocalypse of Sedrach (ca. second to fifth centuries) in paradise (Apocalypse, 610), although a heavy process of revision and Christianisation makes the contents of this text in Late Antiquity conjectural (Apocalypse, 606–7). Also, in the East Syrian recension of the Syriac Christian Cave of Treasures, composed before the rise of Islam (Minov, Date, 204; Minov, Memory, 37), only the tree of life is explicitly cited on earthly paradise of Mount Eden. In this East Syrian recension, Adam is commanded not to eat from the tree of life which God planted in the middle of the world. When Satan tempts Eve, it is she that eats from it. Although another, unnamed tree in which Eve hides also appears in the account, the tree of knowledge of good and evil is never mentioned (Zellentin, 111), and thus the forbidden tree seems to be the tree of life (Cave, 541–3). In both the Qurʾān and this recension of the Cave of Treasures, the potential immortality of the first couple is replaced by the immortality granted by accepting the Qurʾān’s guidance or the salvation offered by Jesus Christ, respectively.
By contrast, the tree of knowledge, along with the tree of life, explicitly occurs in the West Syrian recension of the Cave of Treasures (La Caverne, 12–15). The Qurʾān and the East Syriac recension thus contradict the West Syrian recension and older biblical lore, according to which there are two trees in Eden—the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. In Genesis 2:16–17, God commands Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil or they will die. Yet the serpent promises them the chance to be like gods, often rendered as “angels” too in the Septuagint, Peshitta, and Targum (Witztum, 26). As they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve are banished by God from Eden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life and becoming immortal. Two trees—the tree of life and the tree of knowledge—are mentioned in Genesis Rabbah as well.
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim exegetes were keenly interested in the botanical species of the tree of eternity or tree of life. In Genesis Rabbah, some of the rabbis considered the tree of life to be a date palm, others the olive, and again others the fig tree, while the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was imagined as wheat, grapes, or figs (Midrash Rabbah, XV 6–7, XIX 5). These Jewish notions partially maintained their currency for Christians, for whom the tree of life is often represented as vine or olive, e.g. by Ephrem the Syrian in his Diatessaron commentary (Murray, 125). Strikingly, Genesis Rabbah also describes the tree of life to be spread over all living things or cover a 500-year journey (Midrash Rabbah, XV 6). Similar to Jewish and Christian exegetes, Muslim commentators on the Qurʾān sought to describe the one tree in paradise: the tree of eternity was so big that a rider could travel under its shade for a hundred years (Ibn Kathīr, 20:120; Tottoli, 869–70). It seems that Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī (d. 204/819–20) from Basra is the first Muslim scholar who cited this tradition in his Musnad (al-Ṭayālisī, ḥadīth 2670). In the chain of transmission, further Basran scholars are mentioned, but the ḥadīth is attributed to Abū Hurayra (d. 59/678–9). It seems likely, therefore, that the ḥadīth “There is a tree in paradise so big that a rider could travel under its shade for a hundred years and it is the tree of eternity” emerged in Basra, and the tree of eternity came to be associated with “a tree.”
Muslim exegetes interpreted the tree of life as spikenard—a plant of sweet odour—or a variety of it, wheat, spelt, grape, fig, and date palm (Ibn Kathīr, 2:35; al-Ṭabarī, 2:35; al-Zamakhsharī, 2:35). These interpretations show some familiarity with the Jewish and Christian depictions of the trees in paradise, yet apparently in part conflate the species of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.
- Bibliography
Apocalypse of Sedrach: A new translation and introduction by S. Agourides, in James H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic literature and testaments, vol. 1 (New York 1983), 605–13;
The cave of treasures: A new translation and introduction by Alexander Toepel, in Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila, and Alexander Panayotov (eds.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More noncanonical scriptures (Grand Rapids 2013), 531–84;
La Caverne des Trésors. Les Deux Recensions Syriaques, Scriptores Syri 207, ed. Su-Min Ri, Leuven 1987;
Ismāʿīl b. ʿUmar Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 4 vols., Cairo n.d.;
Midrash Rabbah, Genesis I, trans. with notes, glossary, and indices under the editorship of Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman and Maurice Simon, London 1961;
Sergey Minov, Date and provenance of the Syriac Cave of Treasures: A reappraisal, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 20/1 (2017), 129–229;
Sergey Minov, Memory and identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran, Leiden 2020;
Robert Murray, Symbols of church and kingdom: A study in early Syriac tradition, Royston 20062;
Angelika Neuwirth, Der Koran. Band 2/1 Frühmittelmekkanische Suren. Das neue Gottesvolk: “Biblisierung” des altarabischen Weltbildes, Berlin 2017;
A. al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī: Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, ed. A. al-Turkī, 26 vols., Riyadh 2003;
S. al-Ṭayālisī, Musnad Abī Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī, ed. A. al-Turkī. 4 vols., Cairo 1999;
Roberto Tottoli, Muslim eschatology and the ascension of the Prophet Muḥammad: Describing paradise in miʿrāj traditions and literature, in Sebastian Günther and Todd Lawson (eds.), Roads to paradise: Eschatology and concepts of the hereafter in Islam, 2 vols. (Leiden 2017), 2:858–90;
Joseph Witztum, Variant traditions, relative chronology, and the study of intra-Quranic parallels, in Asad Q. Ahmed et al. (eds.), Islamic cultures, Islamic contexts: Essays in honor of Professor Patricia Crone, Islamic history and civilization 114 (Leiden 2015), 1–50;
A. al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf ʿan ḥaqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa-ʿuyūn al-aqāwīl fī wujūh al-taʾwīl, ed. A. al-Mahdī, 4 vols., Beirut 2001;
Holger M. Zellentin, Trialogical anthropology: The Qurʾān on Adam and Iblīs in view of rabbinic and Christian discourse, in Rüdiger Braun and Hüseyin I. Cicek (eds.), New approaches to human dignity in the context of Qurʾānic anthropology: The quest for humanity (Newcastle upon Tyne 2017), 61–31.
Информация о статье
- Автор: Редакция сайта; E-mail: feedback@quranacademy.org.
- Библиографическая ссылка: Древо вечности [Электронный ресурс] // QuranAcademy.org: Академия Корана. 2026 г.
- URL: http://ru.quranacademy.org/encyclopedia/article/Древо вечности
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