The rain has no color. Look what grows.

The skin of a pear can be green at the stem and yellow at the base, with no clear line where one color becomes the other. A red apple beside it has a pale patch the size of a thumb. Farther down in the bowl, a grape looks almost black until the light reaches its edge.

An overfull day can leave its quiet moments crowded with things still to answer. The bowl has been here through all of it. A tired person can receive this small part of Allah's giving in the minute available before the meal, with quiet gratitude and an unhurried look.

We call the contents fruit, and the word is useful. Still, a great deal disappears inside that one word: the dusty surface of a grape, the fine freckles on a pear, the red that deepens as the apple turns. Familiarity lets a hand reach into the bowl while the eyes remain elsewhere.

Surah Fatir gives the eye a reason to linger. Allah brings forth variety through the rain He sends, and even this small part of His giving has more detail than a hurried glance can hold. Its colors are already here, resting against one another in the afternoon light.

A child might name them aloud. An adult might notice a bruise and move the ripest fruit to the top. Both have come close enough to see a little of what is there. Gratitude can have that ordinary beginning, before a sentence forms in the heart and before the knife reaches the skin.

One apple leans awkwardly against the rim; a few grapes have come loose from their stem. On the pear's shoulder, the daylight finds that place where green becomes yellow. The boundary stays soft, however long the eye rests there.

Read the full piece to explore more →

The Yellow Pencil: an original fictional family story, not a narration from Islamic history.

Hana had one yellow pencil left. Her brother Sami had borrowed the red, and the green had rolled beneath a cupboard.

“We can only draw lemons,” she said.

Grandmother put a pear on the table. Hana colored its outline yellow, then looked up. A brown patch sat near the stalk.

“It has another color.”

“Several,” said Grandmother.

Sami returned with the red pencil. He had drawn an apple as red as a fire engine, but the apple on the table had a pale stripe down one side.

They fetched the green pencil with a ruler. Hana added a little green around the pear's stem. Sami left a patch of his apple almost white.

When they finished, the drawings looked less tidy than the first ones. They looked more like the fruit.

Grandmother cut the pear into slices. Hana held one beside her drawing and noticed that the inside was a color she had never thought to choose.

“We need another pencil,” she said.

Sami pushed the box between them. “We had better keep the fruit here while we look.”