Across the Quran, dates and grapes are by far the most frequently mentioned fruits, usually named together as a pair, often alongside olives — three plants that were staple produce across Arabia and the wider region. Pomegranates and figs are each named too, though less often. A sixth plant, talh in 56:29, is popularly translated as "banana" in some modern renderings, but that reading is genuinely disputed among translators and classical commentators — covered honestly further down rather than asserted as settled.
Fruits in the Quran
The Quran names several specific fruits when describing the earth's produce and the gardens of Paradise. This page looks at which ones are actually named, with the Arabic ayat — and is honest about one popular claim ("banana") that isn't as settled as it's often presented.
🌴Datesmost frequent
🍇Grapesvery frequent
🫒Olivesfrequent
🍎Pomegranatesnamed 3×
🌱Figsnamed once
Named plainly, more than once
🌴 Dates (tamr / nakheel / ruṭab)
The date palm is the most frequently mentioned fruit-bearing tree in the Quran, referenced in dozens of verses across both Makkan and Madinan surahs — as food, as a sign of Allah's provision, and in the story of Maryam giving birth beneath a palm trunk and being told to shake it for fresh, ripe dates.
Qur'an — Maryam and the palm tree
وَهُزِّىٓ إِلَيْكِ بِجِذْعِ ٱلنَّخْلَةِ تُسَـٰقِطْ عَلَيْكِ رُطَبًۭا جَنِيًّۭا
"And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; it will drop upon you fresh, ripe dates."
🍇 Grapes ('inab)
Grapes and grapevines appear repeatedly, almost always in the same breath as dates and olives — the three plants the Quran most often groups together as examples of the earth's produce. They're also named in a separate list of foods provided for both people and livestock.
Qur'an — olives, dates, and grapes together
يُنۢبِتُ لَكُم بِهِ ٱلزَّرْعَ وَٱلزَّيْتُونَ وَٱلنَّخِيلَ وَٱلْأَعْنَـٰبَ وَمِن كُلِّ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ ۗ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَـَٔايَةًۭ لِّقَوْمٍۢ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
"He causes to grow for you thereby the crops, olives, palm trees, grapevines, and from all the fruits. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought."
🫒 Olives (zaytun)
Olives are named alongside dates and grapes in the same verses above, and given their own surah opening in Surah at-Tin. Botanically the olive itself is a fruit (its oil is pressed from the flesh), and the Quran treats it this way — grouped with other fruiting produce rather than singled out as an oil source.
Named specifically, less often
🍎 Pomegranates (rumman)
Pomegranates are named three times in the Quran, twice alongside grapes and olives as part of the earth's varied gardens (6:99, and again in 55:68), and once more in 55:68 grouped with dates as fruits of Paradise. Classical commentators (including al-Qurtubi) note that naming pomegranates specifically, right after the general word "fruit," is a rhetorical device used elsewhere in the Quran to single something out for special mention.
Qur'an — fruits of Paradise
فِيهِمَا فَـٰكِهَةٌۭ وَنَخْلٌۭ وَرُمَّانٌۭ
"In both of them are fruit, palm trees, and pomegranates."
🌱 Figs (teen)
The fig is named once, in the very first ayah of Surah at-Tin ("The Fig"), sworn by alongside the olive. Commentators differ on whether the oath refers to the literal fruits, or to the fig- and olive-growing regions of Syria and Palestine associated with earlier prophets — but either way, the fig itself is the plain, named subject of the oath.
⚠ About the "banana" claim
You may have seen lists online stating the Quran names five or six fruits, with the sixth being the banana, based on 56:29's word ṭalḥ (described as manḍūd, "clustered" or "layered"). We looked into this before deciding what to write here, and the honest answer is that it's disputed, not settled:
- For "banana": some commentators note that in the dialect of Yemen, ṭalḥ was used for the banana plant, and "clustered/layered" fruit fits a bunch of bananas well.
- Against it: the more established classical reading (found in Ibn Kathir and others, tracing to Ibn Abbas, Mujahid, and Ikrimah) takes ṭalḥ as a reference to the acacia or a thornless variety of it — a shade tree the people of the Hijaz were familiar with, not a fruit tree at all. On this reading, the verse is praising it for its shade and abundant blossom, not describing a fruit.
Because respected classical commentary is genuinely split between "a shade tree" and "banana," this page doesn't count the banana among the Quran's clearly-named fruits — dates, grapes, olives, pomegranates, and figs are on firmer ground.
Citations above link to the Quran reader; Arabic text is reproduced from the site's Tanzil-sourced Uthmani dataset. This page is a descriptive survey of what's named in the text — not a claim about nutrition or "scientific" significance.