I came across mention of the Banana, and it was really my first thought. Eve eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge is so often portrayed as having a sexual awakening component, I couldn't help but feel that a banana made much more sense than an apple since, well, it is so damn phallic.
So did bananas have a sexual connotation from their shape at that time?
Or am I reading to much into this, and the choice of a banana was made simply because it was a fruit that was familiar to people in the region?
Is it true that Mohammed opined that that the fruit in the Garden of Eden was a Banana(?)
Do you have a source for this? The name of the tree or fruit was not mentioned in the Qur'an, and the only thing I can find in the Cambridge World History of Food, p. 178 is:
Simmonds (1957) indicates that the banana entered the Koran as the “tree of paradise.” The generic name Musa is derived from the Arabic word mouz, meaning banana (Purseglove 1988).
But since I do not have a copy of Simmond's book (titled, hilariously enough, Bananas), I couldn't say what he means by "tree of paradise"; it could mean "the forbidden tree", or "a tree that is good enough to be featured in paradise".
edit: I just checked, and the mention of bananas in the Qur'an definitely does not refer to it as "the forbidden fruit"
Is it true that Mohammed opined that that the fruit in the Garden of Eden was a Banana
No. The Quranic depiction of the Garden of Eden story can be found in Q2:35 and 20:121. The Arabic simply refers to it as a forbidden "tree" without specifying what kind. Q7:19-22 suggests that the tree is evil, that eating of it would make them of the "wrongdoers". Satan then gives them the idea that the tree would make them immortal or angels. The Quran also does not blame Eve solely for the transgression, but rather just says "Then they [both] ate thereof". (Q20:121)
Nor is the word "banana" or the Arabic "موز" in the hadith [edit2][edit] or the Quran and the sole mention of bananas in the Quran is in an unrelated passage referring to "banana trees" as being among the splendors of paradise in Q56:29. You can search for yourself here: http://sunnah.com/.
Unfortunately I don't have access to any good classical tafsirs (exegeses) either in translation or the original, but a quick glance at some of the modern ones gives no indication that the fruit would have been a banana, but rather that the tree itself must have been something evil, for God would not forbid something good to his creations.