Mihād comes from the root mīm hāʾ dāl which was used for soft butter as well as for the cradle of an infant, made excessively comfortable and soft. The core meaning is of softness and gentleness inside something. This root predominantly came to be used for an infant’s cradle, since it is made excessively soft and comfortable for it.6
This is phrased as a question to articulate an undeniable fact. If a father says to his child, did I not bring you up, he is not asking his child if it is true or not. He is simply phrasing it as a question to highlight the undeniable fact that he did in fact raise his child.
What is meant by the earth being soft? The fact that it can be dug up to plant seeds
inside it. You will see this mentioned at the very end in verse 16. This word mihād fits it perfectly. Firstly, since the earth is soft, it can be dug up and seeds planted inside it. Then just as a mother acts as a womb for a child, so does the earth act as the womb of all the seeds inside it, so that it gives rise to plants and vegetation.
“Have We not made the earth a Mihād?”
This is the beginning of Allah’s answer to them.
Mihād comes from the root mīm hāʾ dāl which was used for soft butter as well as for the cradle of an infant, made excessively comfortable and soft. The core meaning is of softness and gentleness inside something. This root predominantly came to be used for an infant’s cradle, since it is made excessively soft and comfortable for it.6
This is phrased as a question to articulate an undeniable fact. If a father says to his child, did I not bring you up, he is not asking his child if it is true or not. He is simply phrasing it as a question to highlight the undeniable fact that he did in fact raise his child.
What is meant by the earth being soft? The fact that it can be dug up to plant seeds
inside it. You will see this mentioned at the very end in verse 16. This word mihād fits it perfectly. Firstly, since the earth is soft, it can be dug up and seeds planted inside it. Then just as a mother acts as a womb for a child, so does the earth act as the womb of all the seeds inside it, so that it gives rise to plants and vegetation.
6 Al-Muʿjam al-Ishtiqāqī al-Muʾaṣṣal li-Alfāẓ al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, vol. 1, p. 559