Part 2

Il. That man is distinguished from the other creatures in appearance and shape.

12. That man is an indivisible whole: composite of soul, mind and body.

Stages of the Creation of Man

Ibn Al-Qayyem writes the following:

By considering the verses in the Qur’an in which Almighty Allah has urged His servants to reflect upon Him, one will indeed be led to learn about Allah, about His Oneness and attributes of perfection; to learn about aspects of His might as attested by the absoluteness of His power, the infinite nature of His wisdom; by His mercy, generosity, clemency, kindness, justice, grace, anger, reward and punishment - it is through reflection on these facts that He willed His servants to know Him, and it is for this reason that He exhorted them to reflect upon His signs.

It is with this in mind that I here mention a number of signs as referred to in the Qur’an, so that they may be a reminder of further signs. One set of such signs are related to the creation of man. It will be noticed that in numerous places in the Qur’an we have been exhorted to reflect on the creation of man, as for example in the following verses:

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“Just as there are signs within your own selves: can you not, then, see?” (51: 21)

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“O men! If you are in doubt as to the truth of resurrection, remember that, verily, We have created every one of you out of dust, then out of a drop of sperm, then out of a germ-cell, then out of an embryonic lump complete in itself and yet incomplete, so that We might make your origin clear unto you.

“And whatever We will to be born We cause to rest in the mothers’ wombs for a term set by Us, and then We bring you forth as infants and allow you to live so that some of you might attain to maturity: for among you are such as are caused to die in childhood, just as many a one of you is reduced in old age to a most abject state, ceasing to know anything of what he once knew so well.” (21: 5)

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“Does man, then, think that he is to be left to himself, to go about at will?

Was he not once a mere drop of sperm that had been spilt, and thereafter became a germ-cell —- whereupon He created and formed it in accordance with what it was meant to be, and fashioned out of it the two sexes, the male and the female?

Is not He, then, able to bring the dead back to life?”

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“Did We not create you out of a humble fluid, which We then allowed to remain in the womb’s firm keeping for a term pre-ordained?

Thus have We determined the nature of man’s creation: and excellent indeed is Our power to determine

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“Is man, then, not aware that it is We who create him out of a mere drop of sperm — whereupon, lo! he shows himself endowed with the power to think and to

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“Now, indeed, We create man out of the essence of clay, and then We cause him to remain as a drop of sperm in the womb’s firm keeping, and then We create out of the drop of sperm a germ-cell, and then We create out of the germ-cell an embryonic lump, and then We create within the embryonic lump bones, and then We clothe the bones with flesh — and then We bring all this into being as a new creation: hallowed, therefore, is Allah, the best of

In many places in the Qur’an a human is urged to reflect and ponder over the starting of his creation, the growth and the end.

Male reproductive cells swimming In the Spermatic Fluid ansparent area

Sperm peneltrales and ises with Ovum nucleus

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L.The testes of the male are a kind of factory for sperm. There, sperm are produced on_ the inner surface of hollow tubes with a length of several kilometres. The cells mature there to be sperm, when each has a head 5 microns long and a tail 55 microns long. The sperm is considered to be a bearer of half a potential human. It may be noted that one ejaculation of semen from the male may carry 500 million sperm, or spermatozoa, although a human is created from just a single sperm. Even twins can be created from two sperm or spermatozoa that fertilize one egg. The sperm tubes in the testis are about 4000 in number (quoted from: “The Creation of Man, Between Medicine and the Quran’ \*

* The parts indented and in small script are modern material selected by Capt. Al-Qoz.

In his own creation and within himself he can find the most telling signs that point to his Creator and Originator. Man’s own being is closest to him, and there he can find such wonders that point to the greatness of the Lord in a way that many lifetimes would not be sufficient to know more than a fragment of them. It is unfortunate that man should not reflect on that: if he did, the overwhelming nature of creation would deter him from being ungrateful to his Creator.

Let us read about this in the Qur’an:

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“Only too often man destroys himself: how stubbornly does he deny the truth! Does man ever consider out of what substance Allah creates him? Out of a drop of sperm He creates him, and thereupon determines his nature, and then makes it easy for him to go through life; and in the end He causes him to die and brings him to the grave; and then, if it be His will, He shall raise him again

When the Almighty repeatedly makes us recite these and similar verses so that we might learn about the drop of sperm, the clot, the lump of flesh and the dust, He does not merely want us to utter them, nor to be cognizant of them, but to understand a further meaning, which these things build up to, and which is the purport of the Qur’anic text.

The drop of sperm in the womb, the shaping of the clot, and the lump of flesh

Have a look now at the drop of sperm with an eye that has vision. It is no more than a drop of worthless, repulsive

and dirty liquid. It is a drop that would, if left for an hour or so, go bad and reek. See now how the Lord of lords causes this drop to issue from between the loin of man and the pelvic arch of woman, obedient to His beckoning, responding to His will, docile and humble, progressing despite the raggedness and bumpiness of its paths, until He shepherds it to its destination and settling. See how the Almighty has brought together the male and the female and sown love in their hearts. See how with both desire and affection Allah leads them as if on a journey toa meeting that is the cause of the creation and forming of the child. See how the liquids from male and female mingle against all odds, and consider how they run filing from organs and paths that lie far apart until they come together at the same spot; how they settle at a firm lodging (i.e. the womb), protected from infection by the outer air, from the cold weather of the world, and from exposure to a possible mishap or catastrophe that may smite them, Consider then how the Lord transformed this whitish cloudy droplet into a blackish-red clot; how He then transformed it into an embryonic lump, very unlike the previous clot in colour, quality, and shape; how He transformed this into unclothed bones, unlike the embryonic lump in shape, appearance, size, touch and colour.

A woman’s ovary contains eggs, each of which can potentially produce half a human. The number of eggs in the single ovary is 400,000, although only a single egg is released (ovulation) in each menstrual cycle (29 days). The release of eggs is normally carried out alternately by the two ovaries. The ovary is considered the primary sexual gland of the female, the counterpart of the male’s testis.

Fallopian tubes they deliver ova to the womb after ovulation

Ovarian ligaments (Connect ovaries to utert

FE Cervix, a muscular aperture

The stage of the bones, flesh and nerves

Consider now how He caused those apparently homogenous and equal parts to specialize into nerves, bones, vessels, sinews, some hard, some soft, and some partly hard. See how God has tied them all very firmly in the most compact form; how the bones are covered with flesh that clothes them all and clings to them and protects them; how the bones in turn give the flesh the necessary strength and ability to move — the service is reciprocal: the bones give the flesh solidity, and the flesh gives the bones protection! See how the Lord formed the human in the

best shape, how He placed the ears to hear and the eyes to see, the mouth, the nose, and all the rest of sense organs that serve as channels to the outer world; how He made the arms and the legs, gave them the needed power and extension, how He provided their ends with fingers and toes; how the fingers and toes are further divided into phalanges; how the inside of the body contains organs like the heart, the stomach, the liver, the spleen, the lungs, the womb, the bladder, the intestine, each performing its own task and its own function.

The forms of various bones and how they are joined

Consider now the exceeding wisdom embodied in the creation of bones to be a framework and bulwark for the body. You can see how the Lord has determined their different sizes and forms; some small, some big; some long, some short; some curved, some circular; some thin, some thick; some solid, some hollow. Consider how bones have been interlocked, some in the form of tendon and mortise, some just touching end to end. See how their forms are varied in a way that is adapted to their functions: the molars for instance are designed to grind, and so they have a flat surface; while the incisors are designed to cut, and so they have a sharp thin edge. Since man needs to move the whole of his body and alternate parts of it carry out whatever work he needs to accomplish, the bones have not been made as one cohesive mass; there are rather many bones with joints that link one to another in a way that facilitates movement. Each joint is of the size and form that serves the task it is meant to perform. Consider how all these joints and organs are firmly built, and how they are connected with tendons and ligaments that extend from one end of the bone and then reach to the next bone to support the first, and see how the bone has a protrusion that exactly fits a recess in the bone that