We start with the following verse:
{ وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ صَوَّرْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لِآدَمَ ………..(11)} سورة الأعراف
{And We created you, [thuma] thereafter [Sawarnakum] fashioned you, [thuma] thereafter told the angels prostrate to Adam….} Chapter 7:11
The Arabic word Sawarnakum from sorah (n.) which means picture, like a photograph. So Sawarnakum means, make you on the image you are on. So I translated as fashioned, others translated it as: shaped, gave you shape or form.
يقول الإمام الطبري: “القول في تأويل قوله : {وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ صَوَّرْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لآدَمَ فَسَجَدُوا إِلا إِبْلِيسَ لَمْ يَكُنْ مِنَ السَّاجِدِينَ(11)} قال أبو جعفر: اختلف أهل التأويل في تأويل ذلك. قال أبو جعفر: وأولى الأقوال بالصواب قول من قال: تأويله: (وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَاكُمْ)، ولقد خلقنا آدم (صَوَّرْنَاكُمْ)، بتصويرنا آدم، كما قد بينا فيما مضى من خطاب العرب الرجلَ بالأفعال تضيفها إليه, والمعنيُّ في ذلك سلفه، وكما قال جل ثناؤه لمن بين أظهر المؤمنين من اليهود على عهد رسول الله: وَإِذْ أَخَذْنَا مِيثَاقَكُمْ وَرَفَعْنَا فَوْقَكُمُ الطُّورَ خُذُوا مَا آتَيْنَاكُمْ بِقُوَّةٍ ، [سورة البقرة: 63]. وما أشبه ذلك من الخطاب الموجَّه إلى الحيّ الموجود، والمراد به السلف المعدوم, فكذلك ذلك في قوله: (وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ صَوَّرْنَاكُمْ)، معناه: ولقد خلقنا أباكم آدم ثم صوَّرناه.
وإنما قلنا هذا القول أولى الأقوال في ذلك بالصواب, لأن الذي يتلو ذلك قوله: (ثُمَّ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لآدَمَ)، ومعلوم أن الله تبارك وتعالى قد أمر الملائكة بالسجود لآدم، قبل أن يصوِّر ذريته في بطون أمهاتهم, بل قبل أن يخلُق أمهاتهم.
Imam Al-Tabari said: Abu Jaafar said: The people of interpretation differed in the meaning of that. Added: Abu Jaafar said: The best which is correct is the saying of the one who said this interpretation: (And we have created you), meaning Adam (we have imaged you), by our depiction of Adam… that is similar to that is the speech directed to the present person, which is actually meant to the ancestor. As well as this in His saying: (And we created you and then we fashioned you), meaning: We created your father Adam and then we shaped him.
Rather, we said this saying is correct, because that was followed with: (Thereafter we told the angels prostrate to Adam), and it is known that God, Blessed and Exalted, has commanded the angels to prostrate to Adam, before he depicted his offspring in the tummy of their mothers, even before he created their mothers.” End of quote
Immam Al Tabari added: “And “thereafter” [Thuma] in the speech of the Arabs, does not come except with the condition that what is [said] before it must occur before what is [said] after it, such as the saying that: “I stood and thereafter I sat down.” So there will not be sitting before the standing. And that is the rule in all the speaking [which have the letter Thuma between two events]. And if the letter in that was ‘wa’ [and], it is permissible that the action after it was before the one before it, and that is, as the saying: “You stood and sat down”, then it is allowed that the sitting in this sentence have been before the standing and also allowed to be after, because the letter ‘wa’ when used in the speech, it allows what is after it to take place before what is before it. When the verse saying: {We have created you Thuma [thereafter] we have fashioned you}, it can only be interpreted for what we have said.”
Imam al-Tabari added later: “it is not allowable that the order to the angels to prostrate to Adam could have been but only after the creation and fashioning, as we described before.” End of quote from Imam Al-Tabari.
The early scholar’s knowledge that Adam was the first man created, and there were no people before him, dictated on them that the creation and fashioning which came before the mentioning of Adam, must be meant for him.
But they found the speech addressed to all of us in plural, not addressed to Adam. So they said this is a manner of speech where the address, although it is directed to all of us, it is meant for Adam our great ancestor. But why the verse need to address us [as all the people] and actually mean to address Adam, when Adam is already mentioned in the following sentence by his name.
If we go back to the verse: {And We created you, thereafter fashioned you, thereafter told the angels prostrate to Adam…. (11)} We find that the direct straight forward meaning without forcing the words to imply different meaning than intended, we can simply say {And we created you}: We created you human beings, We created your species, {then we fashioned you}, that is, after we created your species we made you in the image you are today, {Then we said to the angels prostrate to Adam….} then we chose Adam [from the human beings], and we ordered the Angels to bow down to him.
The text is clear, God address all the people, that is, the human beings. We created you people (you started as a cell from clay), then we shaped you (we created you in stages, shapes, and images as we detailed in other verses that we will present later) till you reached the image you are at today, (then – as the Qur’an described in other verses) then when the creation reached its final shape, we chose Adam, and breathed into him from our soul and made him a caliph on Earth, and taught him all the names (all these are mentioned in other verses therefor omitted in this verse)…{thereafter told the angels prostrate to Adam….}
This direct meaning, which the verse indicates, tells us that the creation of the species precedes Adam, which dismisses the creation of Adam directly from clay, and is nearer to the view of the gradual progressive creation.
Let look on another verse:
يقول سبحانه وتعالى: { الَّذِي أَحْسَنَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقَهُ ۖ وَبَدَأَ خَلْقَ الْإِنسَانِ مِن طِينٍ (7) ثُمَّ جَعَلَ نَسْلَهُ مِن سُلَالَةٍ مِّن مَّاءٍ مَّهِينٍ (8) ثُمَّ سَوَّاهُ وَنَفَخَ فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِهِ ۖ وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمْعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَالْأَفْئِدَةَ ۚ قَلِيلًا مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ (9)} سورة السجدة
{He [God} perfected everything which He created and began the creation of human being from clay (7) Thereafter [Thuma] He made his offspring from a solalah [extract or lineage] of insignificant fluid (8) Thereafter [Thuma] He made him complete and breathed into him from His spirit, And He gave you [all people] (the faculties of) hearing and seeing and hearts (intellect): but little thanks you show (9)} Chapter 32:7-8-9
If we assumed that God created Adam directly from clay, in the way as in the Old Testament, Genesis 2:7: (Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.) End of quote. Then the meaning of the above Quran verses will be that God created Adam from clay, then made his descendants propagate from a lineage of insignificant water, thereafter –returned back to Adam – and God completed Adam and breathed into him from His spirit and gave him and gave us the senses of hearing, seeing and heart.
This is how the early scholars interpreted these verses as their knowledge was based on the direct creation from clay.
Following are extracts which briefly show their interpretations of these verses:
{He [God} perfected everything which He created and began the creation of human being from clay (7)}
Ibn Katheer said: “It means the creation of the father of all human beings Adam from clay,” also said like him al-Tabari and al-Qortubi.
(ثُمَّ جَعَلَ نَسْلَهُ مِنْ سُلَالَةٍ مِنْ مَاءٍ مَهِينٍ)(8) قال أبن كثير: ”أَيْ يَتَنَاسَلُونَ كَذَلِكَ مِنْ نُطْفَة تَخْرُج مِنْ بَيْن صُلْب الرَّجُل وَتَرَائِب الْمَرْأَة“. وقال الطبري: ”يَعْنِي ذُرِّيَّته مِنْ سُلَالَة , يَقُول : مِنَ الْمَاء الَّذِي انْسَلَّ فَخَرَجَ مِنْهُ“. وقال القرطبي: ”مِنْ مَاء مَهِين “ ضَعِيف“.
{Thereafter He made his descendants from lineage of insignificant fluid (8)} Ibn Katheer said: meaning {they propagate from a semen that comes out from man and woman} End of quote. Al-Tabari said: “He means his descendants from an extract. He says: From the water that extracted and came out of him.” And al-Qortubi said: “From insignificant water, weak.” End of extract.
(ثُمَّ سَوَّاهُ وَنَفَخَ فِيهِ مِنْ رُوحِهِ وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمْعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَالْأَفْئِدَةَ)(9)
{Then He made him complete and breathed into him of His spirit, And He gave you [all people] (the faculties of) hearing and sight and feeling (and understanding): but little thanks you show (9)}
Ibn Katheer said: “Then he [sawah] completed him” means Adam, when he created him from the dust, He created him upright complete and He breathed into him from his spirit and gave him hearing, sight and heart meaning brain.”
Al-Tabari said: “Then the human being who started his creation from clay, He completed his creation standing proportioned {and He breathed into him from his soul} so he became alive capable of speech.”
We find that Ibn Katheer and Al-Tabari did not comment on the fact that the “He completed him” refers to Adam. Having Thuma (Conjunctions letter) in the verse necessitate that the completing of Adam creation, took place after he had children and descendants. Which could not be, since how Adam had descendants before he was completed?
We know that this human being is Adam, because he is the one who God breathed into him and ordered the Angels to bow down to him, and we know that all this happened before he had children, Because of this, Adam must be the one referred to in the last verse 9, and not in the first verse 7 as assumed by the early scholars.
If so, the creature which was created from the clay in verse 7 is not Adam, but an early primitive creature, that is why the verse said { ….began the creation of human beings from clay (7)} notice the word ‘began’, the word began indicates that this creation have a start, growth and completion, it is not immediate or instant, if creation was miraculous as described in the Old Testament, it would not have had a beginning and end, it would have been immediate.
This creature propagated through weak insignificant fluid and progressed till it reached the shape of a human being, capable of hearing, seeing and intellect, then God breathed the spirit into him and only then we have the first human being which is called Adam.
The verses clearly points to a creation which begun from clay as a primitive creature which progressed, reproduced and evolved through its descendants till it became complete as a human being, with abilities of hearing, seeing and understanding, at this stage God selected Adam and breathed in him from His soul.
Note the Conjunctions letter used in the last verse 9 is ‘Wa’= ‘and’, which allows the acquiring of the senses to be before the {…. made him complete and breathed into him from His spirit…}.
The verses are easy to understand if we disregard the idea of one time creation and endorse the gradual progressive creation. Read the verses again, considering this, time that Adam is the one mentioned in the last verse (9), when creation is completed, not in the first verse (7):
{He [God} perfected everything which He created and began the creation of human beings from clay (7) Thereafter [Thuma] He made his offspring from a sulalah [extract or lineage] of insignificant fluid (8) Thereafter [Thuma] He made him complete and breathed into him from His spirit, And He gave you [all people] (the faculties of) hearing and seeing and hearts (intellect): but little thanks you show (9)} Chapter 32
The verses tells us that human beings were created starting from clay, thereafter through a lineage of creations of Insignificant water (could be the DNA), till it took the shape of human being, then God breathed into him from His soul.
To Be Continued in the Next Blog.