In the Islamic story of creation, Allah made the date palm not out of the same clay he used for other trees but from some of the material he had left over after making the first human.
It's known as the tree of life in the Bible, and the palm is often shown in carvings from the earliest period of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations where dates were a staple food.
Food writer Diana Henry tempts our reporter Anna McNamee with the special fruit.
