Zaqqum

In Islamic exegesis and modern scholarship, the Zaqqum tree has also been related to Surat al-Masad, which cryptically describes a figure whose title is Abu Lahab.

In the Garden of Eden, the devil took on the form of a serpent and infected the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil before tempting Adam and Eve to eat from it.

[4] In particular, Quranic elements of an evil tree producing bitter fruit for the damned has been related to a passage found in the Apocryphon of John (2nd century AD):[5]And the archons took him and placed him in paradise.

Some Islamic scholars believe in a literal meaning of this tree grown in fire, showing the inverted flora of hell.

The inhabitants of hell are forced to eat the tree's fruits, which tears their bodies apart and releases bodily fluids as a punishment.

[15] Volney describes the Balanites aegyptiaca tree as a ”species called Zakkoun, which produces a sweet oil, also celebrated for healing wounds.

This Zakkoun resembles a plum-tree; it has thorns four inches long, with leaves like those of the olive-tree, but narrower greener, and prickly at the end; its fruit is a kind of acorn, without calix, under the bark of which is a pulp, and then a nut, the kernel of which gives an oil that the Arabs sell very dear : this is the sole commerce of Raha, which is no more than a ruinous village.