Tefekkür Signs for those who reflect
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S4

Creation of the human being

23:12–14 traces a human being from clay to a drop, a clinging thing, a lump, bones and flesh, and then says something new appears: "then We developed him into another creation".

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ مِن سُلَٰلَةٍ مِّن طِينٍ۝١٢ ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَٰهُ نُطْفَةً فِى قَرَارٍ مَّكِينٍ۝١٣ ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا ٱلنُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا ٱلْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا ٱلْمُضْغَةَ عِظَٰمًا فَكَسَوْنَا ٱلْعِظَٰمَ لَحْمًا ثُمَّ أَنشَأْنَٰهُ خَلْقًا ءَاخَرَ ۚ فَتَبَارَكَ ٱللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ ٱلْخَٰلِقِينَ۝١٤

walaqad khalaqnā l-insāna min sulālatin min ṭīnin · thumma jaʿalnāhu nuṭ'fatan fī qarārin makīnin · thumma khalaqnā l-nuṭ'fata ʿalaqatan fakhalaqnā l-ʿalaqata muḍ'ghatan fakhalaqnā l-muḍ'ghata ʿiẓāman fakasawnā l-ʿiẓāma laḥman thumma anshanāhu khalqan ākhara fatabāraka l-lahu aḥsanu l-khāliqīna

And certainly did We create man from an extract of clay. Then We placed him as a sperm-drop in a firm lodging. Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot, and We made the clot into a lump [of flesh], and We made [from] the lump, bones, and We covered the bones with flesh; then We developed him into another creation. So blessed is Allah, the best of creators.

23:12–14

Translation: Saheeh International

Key words

Sulāla min ṭīn: an extract of clay. Nuṭfa: a small drop of fluid. Qarār makīn: a firm, secure lodging. ʿAlaqa: from a root meaning to cling or hang; it can mean a clot of blood or a leech. Muḍgha: a small piece of flesh, the size of a chewed mouthful. ʿIẓām: bones. Khalqan ākhar: "another creation".

The connecting words

The Arabic links the stages with two different words: thumma ("then", with a gap) and fa- ("and so", following on). The verse does not give durations.

Setting

Sura al-Muʾminūn is Meccan. The passage follows a description of the believers (23:1–11) and leads into death and resurrection: the next verses say that after this you will die and then be raised on the Day of Resurrection (23:15–16, paraphrased; not quoted from verified data here). The stages are part of an argument for the resurrection.

See also: 22:5

Classical tafsir

Ibn Kathir on 23:12. God "initially created man from an extract of Tin" — that is, Adam (pbuh) — and then his descendants from a drop.

Ibn Kathir on the stages. The ʿalaqa: "Then it becomes a red clot, like an elongated clot", and he cites ʿIkrima: "This is blood." The muḍgha: "like a piece of flesh with no shape or features". Then: "We gave it shape, with a head, two arms and two legs, with its bones, nerves and veins", and the flesh is "something to cover it and strengthen it". On "another creation": "then We breathed the soul into it, and it moved and became a new creature". He also reports Ibn ʿAbbas: "We change it from one stage to another until it emerges as an infant."

The forty-day hadith. Ibn Kathir cites the report of Ibn Masʿud (ra): "The creation of anyone of you is gathered for forty days in his mother's stomach as a Nutfah", followed by the clot and the lump, and "Then the angel is sent to him and he breathes the soul into it" (Ibn Kathir's wording, from the version in Musnad Ahmad, which he says was also "recorded by Al-Bukhari and Muslim"). The English of Bukhārī 3208 Ṣaḥīḥ (sound) reads differently: "(The matter of the Creation of) a human being is put together in the womb of the mother in forty days", and "Then the soul is breathed into him" comes after the angel writes four things.

Al-Jalālayn. "Then We transformed the drop of semen into a clot congealed blood… into a little lump of flesh… into bones… Then We clothed the bones with flesh", and "Then We produced him as yet another creature by breathing into him Our Spirit."

What they share, and what they did not say. Both read ʿalaqa as a clot of blood, and "another creation" as the breathing of the soul. Neither reads ʿalaqa as "leech", and neither discusses the order in which bone and muscle form. Their use of the stages, as in the verse's setting, is to show God's power to create, and so to raise the dead.

How it works

Each point is tied to a word of the verse.

  • "A firm lodging". Established The embryo implants in the wall of the womb and grows there, protected by the mother's body. (The timing of implantation has not yet been consulted in a source.)
  • "Clinging" (ʿalaqa). Established By the fourth week the embryo is 2–5 mm long. EHD gives Carnegie stage 10 (about 22 days, by the 1987 convention it uses) as 2–3.5 mm with 4–12 somites, and stage 12 (about 26 days) as 3–5 mm with 21–29 somites; UNSW gives stage 12 as "Week 4, 26 - 30 days" and "3 - 5 mm". At this stage it is attached to the womb wall and depends on it.
  • The heart. Established (with debated dating) EHD says the heart's first contractions have "long been described as a Carnegie Stage 10 or possibly a very late Stage 9 event" — about 22 days after fertilisation by its convention — while noting other studies that report 23, 25, or even 28–30 days.
  • "Lump" (muḍgha). Established Somites are paired blocks of tissue along the embryo's back; at stages 10–12 (about 22–26 days by EHD's convention) their number rises from 4 to 29 pairs (EHD). They give the embryo a segmented look.
  • "Bones… covered with flesh". [Moderate, on the timing] Limb buds appear in the fourth week: "Day 24: appearance of upper limb bud" and "Day 26: appearance of lower limb bud" (Lecturio). The limb tissue condenses into "Models of hyaline cartilage" (Lecturio), which later turn to bone. Limb muscle comes from cells that migrate in from the somites: "Muscle comes from myotome: ventrolateral cells originating from somites" (Lecturio). On timing, LifeMap says that "As the bones form and limbs elongate, myoblasts aggregate and form the large muscle masses". In other words, the cartilage skeleton and the muscle develop in the same weeks, overlapping; bone proper (ossification) comes later. Exact week ranges for each were not found in the sources read.

Points of awe

At about four weeks, an embryo of 3–5 mm already has 21–29 pairs of somites (EHD; UNSW).
The heart begins to beat at about 22 days by one standard convention (EHD).
Limb buds appear on about day 24 (arms) and day 26 (legs) (Lecturio).

Reflection

These verses tell a story everyone alive has lived but no one remembers. Clay, a drop, something clinging, a lump, bones, flesh. Then a break: "then We developed him into another creation" (23:14). The commentators understood that break as the breathing of the soul, the point at which a body becomes a person.

The order of the verses is not a lecture in anatomy. Its setting shows its purpose: the very next verses speak of death and of being raised again. The argument is simple. You did not make yourself. You were brought through stages you did not choose, in a place you cannot remember, into a life you now take for granted. The One who did that once can do it again.

There is something else here for the reader. Every person you meet passed through the same stages, the same weeks of being a few millimetres long, the same dependence. No one began as more than anyone else. That is a quiet reason for humility, and for respect.

The passage does not end with an explanation. It ends with praise: "So blessed is Allah, the best of creators" (23:14). The fitting response to one's own existence may be wonder before it is analysis.

Questions readers ask next

Is "clay" about Adam or about every human?

Ibn Kathir reads the extract of clay as Adam's creation, and the later stages as every human's.

Did the Quran describe embryology before science?

Classical scholars did not read it that way: they read the stages as signs of God's power to create and to resurrect. The modern claim and its problems are set out in the honest notes.

What does ʿalaqa mean — a clot or a leech?

The root means to cling or hang. Ibn Kathir and al-Jalālayn read it as a clot of blood; the "leech-like" reading was not found in the classical sources read.

What does "another creation" mean?

Ibn Kathir: "then We breathed the soul into it, and it moved and became a new creature". Al-Jalālayn says the same.

Do bones really form before muscles?

In the limbs, the cartilage model and the muscle masses develop in the same weeks, overlapping; bone proper forms later. Whether the verse means a strict sequence is a matter of reading (see the honest notes).

Sources

  1. Saheeh International — 23:12–14.
  2. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir (abridged English), and Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (English), on 23:12–14, https://surahquran.com/tafsir-english-aya-14-sora-23.html; the Ibn Kathir quotation on 23:12.
  3. The Endowment for Human Development, "Virtual Human Embryo: Carnegie stages 10–12", https://www.ehd.org/virtual-human-embryo/ages.php?stage=11 — ages, sizes, somites, heartbeat.
  4. UNSW Embryology, "Carnegie stage 12", https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Carnegie_stage_12.
  5. Lecturio, "Development of the Limbs", https://wp-assets.lecturio.com/concepts/development-of-limbs/ — limb buds, cartilage models, origin of limb muscle.
  6. LifeMap Discovery, Review of Medical Embryology, ch. 69, "Development of the Limbs", https://discovery.lifemapsc.com/library/review-of-medical-embryology/chapter-69-development-of-the-limbs (no author shown on the page).
  7. "Scientists' Comments On The Qur'an", Islamic Awareness, https://islamic-awareness.org/quran/science/scientists — Keith Moore (a site that promotes the claims), as read for run 9.
  8. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3208
  9. Keith L. Moore (Wikipedia)