Creation and making

Praise be Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth, and made the darkness and the light. Yet those who reject Faith hold (others) as equal, with their Guardian-Lord.

He it is created you from clay, and then decreed a stated term (for you). And there is in His presence another determined term; yet ye doubt within yourselves!

 

Chapter 6, Verses 1-2

God has created the heavens and the earth. God is the one Who created the whole universe. He has developed such a system of Matter and Energy that some bodies emit light and some do not. For example, the stars emit the light but planets do not emit the light. It is due to this system that darkness and light both exist in our universe.

Here there is one point which should be considered.

In this verse, God has used the word “created” for the birth of heavens and the earth and the He used the word “made” for darkness and the light. One reason of these choices of words can be that when these two words would be used simultaneously, “created” means something which is created from nothing, and “made” means something which is created from some already present material. This means that the darkness and the light both are the phenomenon of this universe. But the planets and heavens and earth, they all are created by God from scratch.

In this verse, God says that He has created humans from “clay”. What is the meaning of creation from clay? We will be discussing that in later posts but for now, it should be taken that in scientific terms, clay means Matter. It means that the man is created from matter.

This is really a great miracle of the God that He has created a beautiful, intelligent, living human from a non-living matter.

Creation of man and woman

O mankind! reverance your Guardian-Lord, who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, His mate, and from them twain scattered(like seeds) countless men and women;-reverance Allah, through whom ye demand your mutual (rights), and (reverence) the wombs (That bore you): for Allah ever watches over you.

Chapter 4, Verse 1

This verse indicates that all the humans whether men or women, are originated from the “COMMON ORIGIN”. All the humans have a blood relation common in them. It means they all are relatives. Therefore they should love each other. They should respect each other and pass their lives happily living together.

Creation from a single person:
The Quran says that all the humans of this world are created from a single person. We are created from a single living entity.

Making of Mate:
Our God first created a living entity. Then He created a second living entity from that living entity. These two living entities formed a couple. And then the chain of birth of other human beings started from that couple.

According to Islam, that first living entity was Prophet “Adam (Peace Be Upon Him)” and the second living entity (his mate) was “Hawwa”.

But still the question is that how the first and second living entities were created.
In conventional meanings, it is said that at first the Prophet Adam was created from the clay. Then Hawwa was created from the remaining clay in the same manner.

But there can be one objection upon the above statement. The Quran says that all the humans are created from a single living entity but the above statement says that there were two humans who were created one after the other independent of each other. The concept of Creation from a single entity demands that first a single living entity is created and then the second living entity should be created from the first living entity. Otherwise there will be two separate living entities opposing the concept of the creation from a single living entity. Now there can be two different interpretations from here:

1. In conventional meanings , “creation from a single living entity” can be taken as the Prophet Adam. Since we usually relate children to their father, so may be the Quran uses the same theme in this verse and its interpretation can be taken as “You all are created from a single father”. Obviously, this interpretation doesn’t negate the presence of the mother. Similarly if we take it as “You all are created from a single mother” then this too doesn’t negate the presence of father.

We should try to understand that the main objective of the Quran in this verse is not to explain the biology of the human race. The main objective here is to make humans understand that they have a common origin; they are brothers and sisters to each other. They should live happily together, respect each other, spread love and share sorrows and grieves with each other.

2. The second interpretation can be taken as that the second living entity is created “physically” from the first living entity. This is such that the God has created Prophet Adam from the clay and then created Hawwa from the rib of Adam.

Even in the Bible, there is a concept of the birth of Hawwa from the side of the Prophet Adam:

Or took part of the man’s side (Holy Bible, New International version, International Bible Society)

The question is this that if the concept of the birth of Hawwa from the rib of the Prophet Adam is not correct then what is the correct explanation of this verse? How the second living entity was created from the first living entity. The Quran is silent in this regard. So whatever the concept will be presented on scientific and research level with solid evidences, it can be accepted by the reader of the Quran.

Knowledge of everything and the mother’s womb

From Allah, verily nothing is hidden on earth or in the heavens.

He it is Who shapes you in the wombs as He pleases. There is no god but He, the Exalted in Might, the Wise.

Chapter 3, Verses 5-6

This verse tells us that the God, the Creator of this whole universe, is the one who has all the knowledge. Knowledge of everything. There are many other verses in the Quran which indicates towards the God’s “Knowledge of everything”.

This is the God’s decision, His choice for a person, His rule of creation according to which a child grows up inside the wombs of his/her mother. His/Her shape, hands, feet, lips and many other body parts are formed inside his/her mother’s womb.

The modern embryology has proved that a child is born after a long, complex development process inside the womb of his/her mother. In the very beginning, it is just a cell. We call it a “Zygote”. Even the Zygote is made up of two cells; one is called “Sperm” which comes from the father(male) and the other is called “Ovum” which comes from the mother(female). This zygote then grows through a no. of development stages and finally takes into the form of a complete child. We will discuss this process in detail later posts Insha Allah.

 

Inside the womb, genes are responsible for the type of shape, its size, other physical properties.

So my dear friends, don’t you think that this is the power of the God, our Creator that he forms a complete child , a complete human being from a little cell? Yes, indeed this is an example of The  God’s power. He has the knowledge of everything. We know many things and we don’t know many things but Our God knows everything. And if you just try to ponder you would find that the God’s definition is incomplete without having the knowledge of everything.

So do you accept the invitation to ponder? if yes then please go ahead and answer to the call of your Creator.