Surah 37. As-Saffat, Ayah 63

It cannot be often enough repeated that all Qur'anic references to hell and paradise - and, for that matter, all descriptions of men's conditions in the hereafter - are, of necessity, highly allegorical (see Appendix I) and therefore liable to be grossly misunderstood if one takes them in their literal sense or, conversely, interprets them in an arbitrary manner (cf. 3:7 and the corresponding notes [5], [7] and [8]): and this, to my mind, explains why the symbol of the "tree of deadly fruit" - one of the metonyms for the suffering of the sinners in the hereafter - has become "a trial (fitnah) for evildoers" (or "for men" in 17:60 ). See in this connection 74:31 , which is the earliest Qur'anic instance of this concept of "trial".

This dreadful bitter Tree of Hell is truly a trial to the wrong-doers. (1) It grows at the bottom of Hell; (2) even its fruit-stalks, which should have been tender, are like the heads of devils: (3) its produce is eaten voraciously; (4) on top of it is a boiling mixture to cut up their entrails (see next note); and (5) every time they complete this round of orgies they return to the same game. A truly lurid picture, but more lurid in reality are the stages of Evil. (1) It takes its rise in the lowest depths of corrupted human nature; (2) its tenderest affections are degraded to envy and hate; (3) the appetite for Evil grows with what it feeds on; (4) its "cures" serve but to aggravate the disease; and (5) the chain of evil is unending; one round is followed by another in interminable succession.