The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 389
PT. 14 AL-HIJR must be some other life where he should receive the full reward of his moral and spiritual endeavours. Man having been created from Ja (dry ringing clay) signifies that he has been created from matter in which the faculty and attribute of speech lay latent. This shows that he has been endowed with the power to respond to the voice of God. But as Ja (dry ringing clay) emits a sound only when struck with something extraneous, the word is intended to hint that man's power to respond is subject to his receiving the Divine Call. This faculty establishes his superiority over the whole creation. The Quranic words that man has been created from (black mud wrought into shape) have been used to draw attention to the fact that man has been created from (black mud) i. e. earth and water; earth being the source of the body and water of the soul. Elsewhere, the Quran speaks of "earth" and "water" separately as the things of which man has been created (3:60, 21:31). By joining the word Ja (dry ringing clay) with the word t (black mud), the Quran means to point out that while other living things are created of t (black mud) only, viz. of earth and water, for they too possess a certain kind of undeveloped soul, man is created of combined with i. e. the attribute of speech. He is also i. e. wrought into perfect shape. See also 95:5. It should be remembered that the verse does not mean that clay became at once moulded into a living man by God having breathed life into it. The Quran repeatedly emphasizes the fact CH. 15 that the creation of the universe was gradual. The verse speaks here of only the first stage of man's creation. Other stages of creation have been mentioned in other verses of the Quran e. g. 30:21, 35:12, 40:68, 22:6 and 23:15. These should be read in the order in which they are given here in order to understand how the different stages of development and evolution of man, omitted in one verse, are supplied in the others. The statement of the Quran that man was created out of "earth" (which, incidentally, means that the long process of his creation started with it) also finds corroboration from the fact that even now man's food is derived from the earth, certain parts being derived directly and others indirectly. This clearly shows that the matter contained in the earth forms the origin of man; for if such had not been the case, he could not have derived his nutrition from it, because only that thing of which a being is made can supply it with nutrition, a foreign element being unable to replenish wastage. The verse also implies an effective answer to those who disbelieve and wonder at the possibility of God's speaking to human beings. The verse points out that it is not the phenomenon of revelation that is to be wondered at. On the contrary, it would be a matter for wonder if there had been no such phenomenon, because even from the very beginning of his creation man had been endowed with the power and capacity to receive Divine revelation and respond to it. 1597