In the Quran, Allah reveals that the creation of man is a
miracle. The first human being was created by Allah shaping clay into a
human form and then breathing a soul into it, Allah (SWT) says in Quran :
( إذ قال ربك للملائكة إني خالق بشرا من طينٍ ، فإذا سويته ونفخت فيه من روحي فقعوا له ساجدين ) سورة (ص) 71-72
( Your Lord said to the
angels, "I am going to create a human being out of clay. When I have
formed him and breathed My Spirit into him, fall down in prostration to
him!") (Quran 38:71-72)
and also says :
( فاستفتهم أهم أشد خلقاً أم من خلقنا إنا خلقناهم من طين لازب) الصافات 11
" Then inquire of them: Is
it they who are stronger in structure or other things We have created?
We created them from sticky clay " (Quran 37:11)
When the human body is examined today, many elements present
on the earth are also discovered to be found in the human body. Living
tissues contain 95% carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and
sulphur, with a total of 26 different elements.
In another verse of the Quran we are told:
(ولقد خلقنا الإنسان من سلالة من طين ) المؤمنون 12
"We created man from an extract of clay" (Quran 23:12)
The Arabic word "sulala," translated as "extract" in
the verse, means "representative example, essence." As we have seen,
the information revealed in the Quran 1,400 years ago confirms what
modern science tells us-the fact that the same elements as those found
in the soil are employed in the human creation .
First:
the chemical structure of the human body confirms the relation between
man and clay. The human body consists mainly of water (54% to 70% or
more) in addition to protein (11% to 17%), fat (14% to 26%), and other
several substances and inorganic components (5% to 6%). According
to the chemical analysis of the basic substances of the human body, we
can see that it is composed of the following elements:
· Oxygen 65%.
· Carbon 18%.
· Hydrogen 10%.
· Nitrogen 3%.
· Calcium 1.4%.
· Phosphorous 7%.
In
addition, there are some less abundant substances like iodine,
fluorine, bromine, iron, copper, magnesium, zinc, chrome, cobalt,
nickel, molybdenum, tin, vanadium, silicon, and aluminum. However,
despite their rarity, the shortage of any of these substances may cause
an imbalance in the functions of the human body.
The
components of the human body correspond in general with the chemical
composition of soil when combined with water, i.e. clay. Generally,
soil is made of a number of clay minerals that depend in their
structure on hydrated aluminum silica, and exceed ten in number. They
differ according to the degree of hydration, the percentage of both
aluminum and silicon, or through the addition of other substances like
magnesium, potassium, etc.
Moreover, clay minerals are combined (mixed) with different proportions of sand grains (quartz), feldspars, mica,
iron oxides, and some heavy minerals, in addition to a small percentage
of volcanic ashes, sea lime (calcareous) and salt particles, and ash
particles that result from various combustive operations. Soil
is also mixed with pollen and other plant remnants, bacteria and the
remnants of other microorganisms, some remnants of cosmic and meteoritic
dust, in addition to several other organic substances from the waste of
various living creatures. This combination makes the chemical
composition of soil and water very similar to that of the human body.
Soil is fragmented fine-grained sediment. Its
granular diameter (clay) does not exceed 1/257 of a millimeter, even if
mixed with some granules of silt (the diameter of its granule is 1/16
mm, 1/256 mm) and sand (1/4 – 1/16 mm.)
The
proportion of porosity is as high as 70% to 80% in recently formed clay
sediments. On the other hand, this proportion decreases to only 13% in
old clay (mudstone) rocks, especially in shale. This high proportion of
porosity in newly formed clay sediments increases after denudation
(weathering) and transformation into soil. Soil pores fill with different ions of other substances, in addition to water, air and micro – wastes of living creatures. If the proportion of water increases, clay transforms into mud. The
extraction from which man was created is the substances and compounds
dissolving in the water held between the grains of clay metals and
cracks that form clay.
Second:
Man depends on plants as his main food resource and this confirms the
link between humans and clay: The roots of plants absorb the substances
and compounds dissolved in the water, which is stored between soil
particles. Plants grow and produce different crops that man and several
animals (herbivores) eat. Even creatures that eat both meat and plants
(like humans), or those that eat meat only (carnivores), live, thrive,
and grow depending on this blend absorbed by plants from the space between clay particles, and which turn into clay, and then into mud by watering. That is why Allah (SWT)
created plants before animals and humans, because plants are the only
means to transform ground substances into food chains, which are
necessary for human and animal survival. Indeed, Allah says the truth in
His wisely revealed Book more than fourteen centuries ago; He says what
can be translated as:
- *"And indeed We created man (Adam) out of an extract of clay"* (Surat Al-Mu'minun (The Believers): 12).
- *"Who made everything He has created good, and He began the creation of man from clay"* (Surat As-Sajdah (The Prostration): 7).
- *"And
Allah has brought you forth from the (dust of) earth. Afterwards He
will return you into it (the earth), and bring you forth" (again on the
Day of Resurrection)? *(Surat Nuh: 17, 18).
- Also His words said by His slave and Messenger Saleh (AS) when he spoke to his people:* "O
my people! Worship Allah: you have no other Ilah (God) but Him. He
brought you forth from the earth and settled you therein"* (Surat Hud: 61)
Third: After death, human bodies start to decompose and transform into clay extracts before they merge with the soil. The
relation between the human body and soil with its water content (mud)
reasserts by the huge correspondence between their chemical structures. The growth of the human body (from the embryonic stage up to maturity) depends on some ground substances and their dissolved compounds. These substances are stored between the clay particles that form the earth’s soil, which plants transform (by the Mighty power of Allah) into fruits and crops edible for man. They can also be transformed into grass, which is eaten by animals, making food for man. This
marvelous food chain, in which plants play an enormous role, originally
came out of this clay extract that consists of many substances and
compounds absorbed by plant roots.
Below is a diagram showing the distribution of the elements in a 70-kilo human being.
Element |
Symbol |
% |
Weight |
| Macro-minerals |
|
|
Gram |
Oxygen
Carbon
Hydrogen
Nitrogen
Calcium
Phosphorus
Potassium
Sulfur
Chlorine
Sodium
Magnesium
Silicon |
O
C
H
N
Ca
P
K
S
Cl
Na
Mg
Si |
65.0
18.5
9.5
3.3
1.5
1.0
0.35
0.25
0.15
0.15
0.05
0.05 |
43,000
12,000
6,300
2,000
1,100
750
225
150
100
90
35
30 |
| Macro-minerals |
|
% |
Miligram |
Iron
Zinc
Copper
Boron
Cobalt
Vanadium
Iodine
Selenium
Manganese
Molybdenum
Chromium |
Fe
Zn
Cu
B
Co
V
I
Se
Mn
Mo
Cr |
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01 |
4,200
2,400
90
68
20
20
15
15
13
8
6 |
As we notice above water forms the main component of the human being and any other being. Allah (SWT) says :
( والله خلق كل دابة
من ماء فمنهم من يمشي على بطنه ومنهم من يمشي على رجلين ومنهم من يمشي على
أربع يخلق الله ما يشاء إن الله على كل شيء قدير) النور 45
" Allah created every
[living] creature from water. Some of them go on their bellies, some of
them on two legs, and some on four. Allah creates whatever He wills.
Allah has power over all things" (Quran, 24:45)
(وجعلنا من الماء كل شيء حي أفلا يؤمنون َ) الأنبياء 30
" and We made from water every living thing? So will they not believe?" (Quran, 21:30)
(وهو الذي خلق من الماء بشراً فجعله نسباً وصهراً وكان ربك قديراً ) الفرقان 54
"And it is He Who created human beings from water and then gave them relations by blood and marriage. Your Lord is All-Powerful" (25:54)
When we look at the verses concerned with the creation of
human beings and living things, we clearly see evidence of a miracle.
One such miracle is of the creation of living things from water. It was
only possible for people to come across that information, clearly
expressed in those verses, hundreds of years afterwards with the
invention of the microscope.
All life forms need water in order to survive. Animals in
dry regions, therefore, have been created with mechanisms to protect
their metabolisms from water loss and to ensure maximum benefit from
water use. If water loss takes place in the body for any reason, and if
that loss is not replaced, death will result in a few days. The famous
17th century scientist Jan Baptista van Helmont discovered in 1640s that
water in the soil was the most important element of plant development.
N.B:
- Some disbelievers claimed that quran implies that clay was a "building block". This claim is laughable (They assert it without evidence then talk about an error !). God tells us that humans have been
made from clay, while angels have been made from light. This doesn't mean that they are formed of blocks of light or clay -, It's about their origin !
God informs us that He has
created human beings from clay, yet disbelievers dismiss God's words on
the basis of what? Creation from clay is a sign
for human beings, since to us clay seems so lifeless and inconceivable
that we could be created from it, yet God has truly designed us in the
best form from this substance, a testimony to His power and wisdom.
The charge of plagiarism regarding the creation:
First of all , if we found some ancient cultures that believed in
creation from clay, this would be the result of divine revelation to previous nations
and not analogies from pottery.
Below are the creation accounts from a few different
mythologies/religions to help start you off. You can analyze the similarities and differences if you like. You will find that not only
are these stories ridiculous scientific blunders, but they are
completely unlike the Qur'an. In many of them, it describes gods being
created while the Qur'an describes God creating. Most people who compare
the Qur'an to mythologies in this respect do so only because of the
mention of heavens and earth arising out of some substance, hardly a
good case for plagiarism.
Creation according to Hinduism
According to Hinduism, the universe came into being from the Hiranyagarbha or 'golden womb'. It is described as follows:
Khândogya Upanishad 3.19:1-4. Âditya (the sun) is Brahman, this is the doctrine, and this is the fuller account of it:
In the beginning this was non-existent. It became existent, it grew. It
turned into an egg. The egg lay for the time of a year. The egg broke
open. The two halves were one of silver, the other of gold. The silver
one became this earth, the golden one the sky, the thick membrane (of
the white) the mountains, the thin membrane (of the yoke) the mist with
the clouds, the small veins the rivers, the fluid the sea. And what
was born from it that was Âditya, the sun. When he was born shouts of
hurrah arose, and all beings arose, and all things which they desired.
Therefore whenever the sun rises and sets, shouts of hurrah arise, and
all beings arise, and all things which they desire. If any one knowing
this meditates on the sun as Brahman, pleasant shouts will approach him
and will continue, yea, they will continue.
According to the Hindu scriptures
*,
Brahma, the four-headed four-faced four-armed Creator God of Hinduism,
was created from the fluid in the Hiranyagarbha (golden egg) and from
the thick egg yoke came mountains, rivers from small veins and the
silver portion of the egg became the earth and the golden portion became
the heavens.
Creation according to Babylonian and Assyrian Mythology
According to the myths of Babylon and Assyria, in a civil war of the
Gods, Marduk defeated the dragon goddess Tiamat and tore her body into
parts, using some to create the heaven and some to create the earth.
The Fourth Tablet of Creation 129-132, 135-138, 142-144. And
the lord stood upon Tiamat's hinder parts, And with his merciless club
he smashed her skull. He cut through the channels of her blood, And he
made the North wind bear it away into secret places.
Then the lord rested, gazing upon her dead body, While he divided the
flesh of the ..., and devised a cunning plan. He split her up like a
flat fish into two halves; One half of her he stablished as a covering
for heaven. And over against the Deep he set the dwelling of Nudimmud.
And the lord measured the structure of the Deep, And he founded E-shara,
a mansion like unto it. (
The Seven Tablets of Creation by Leonard William King, 1902)
Creation according to Greek mythology
In the greek myths, the elements and entities in the universe are
personified as gods. So in the beginning there was only chaos and
darkness. Then somehow 'love' appeared bringing about order and night
and day. After the creation of night and day, Gaea, the earth and mother
goddess suddenly appeared. She gave birth to Uranus (the heavens) and
then she mated with her own son to produce other gods including the
titans. After a dispute between Gaea and Uranus, Gaea incited her son
Cronus to castrate Uranus while he slept with Gaea. (
The Theogony of Hesiod II:139-206). See also:
http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/The_Myths/The_Creation/the_creation.html
Creation according to Taoist Chinese Folklore
According to some myths from ancient chinese folklore, the universe came
into being from the first man, Pan-Ku. It is described as follows:
Pan-Ku
came into being in the Great Waste. His origin is unknown. When dying,
he gave birth to the existing material universe. His breath was
transmuted into the wind and clouds; his voice into thunder; his left
eye into the sun, his right eye into the moon; his four limbs and five
extremities into the four quarters of the globe and the five great
mountains, his blood into the rivers; his muscles and veins into the
strata of the earth, his flesh into the soil, etc. (W. G. Aston, E.T.N., vol. I, p. 28)
Creation according to Norse Mythology
According to Norse mythology, Ymir the giant and his cow Auðhumla were
produced from some cloudy mist (according to other narrations fire and
ice). Auðhumla used to lick ice for nourishment and from her licking
emerged Búri, whose grandson killed Ymir. From Ymir's blood came the
sea; his flesh, the earth; his skull, the sky; his bones, the mountains;
his hair, the trees. This new world was called Midgard. Thomas Bulfinch
records the story as follows:
According
to the Eddas there was once no heaven above nor earth beneath, but only
a bottomless deep, and a world of mist in which flowed a fountain.
Twelve rivers issued from this fountain, and when they had flowed far
from their source, they froze into ice, and one layer accumulating over
another, the great deep was filled up.
Southward from the world of mist was the world of light. From this
flowed a warm wind upon the ice and melted it. The vapours rose in the
air and formed clouds, from which sprang Ymir, the Frost giant and his
progeny, and the cow Audhumbla, whose milk afforded nourishment and food
to the giant. The cow got nourishment by licking the hoar frost and
salt from the ice. While she was one day licking the salt stones there
appeared at first the hair of a man, on the second day the whole head,
and on the third the entire form endowed with beauty, agility, and
power. This new being was a god, from whom and his wife, a daughter of
the giant race, sprang the three brothers Odin, Vili, and Ve. They slew
the giant Ymir, and out of his body formed the earth, of his blood the
seas, of his bones the mountains, of his hair the trees, of his skull
the heavens, and of his brain clouds, charged with hail and snow. Of
Ymir's eyebrows the gods formed Midgard (mid earth), destined to become
the abode of man. (Bukfinch, The Age of Fable 1855, ch. 38)
Creation according to Mayan Mythology
According to the Maya of central america, in the beginning there was
only the sky and waters. Tepeu and the feathery serpent Gucumatz chatted
together and told the water to recede and let the earth appear becoming
solid. It is described as follows:
Popol Vuh, part 1, chapter 1.
This is the first account, the first narrative. The surface of the
earth had not appeared. There was only the calm sea and the great
expanse of the sky.
Tepeu and Gucumatz came together in the darkness, in the night, and
Tepeu and Gucumatz talked together. They talked then, discussing and
deliberating; they agreed, they united their words and their thoughts.
Then while they meditated, it became clear to them that when dawn would
break, man must appear. Then they planned the creation, and the growth
of the trees and the thickets and the birth of life and the creation of
man.
Thus let it be done! Let the emptiness be filled! Let the water recede
and make a void, let the earth appear and become solid; let it be done.
Thus they spoke. (Goetz and Morley, Popol Vuh 1954, pp.3-5)
Creation according to Ancient Egyptian Mythology
It is described as follows:
Having
described the coming into being of Khepera and the place on which he
stood, the legend goes on to tell of the means by which the first
Egyptian triad, or trinity, came into existence. Khepera had, in some
form, union with his own shadow, and so begot offspring, who proceeded
from his body under the forms of the gods Shu and Tefnut. According to a
tradition preserved in the Pyramid Texts 2 this event took place at On
(Heliopolis), and the old form of the legend ascribes the production of
Shu and Tefnut to an act of masturbation. Originally these gods were
the personifications of air and dryness, and liquids respectively; thus
with their creation the materials for the construction of the atmosphere
and sky came into being. Shu and Tefnut were united, and their
offspring were Keb, the Earth-god, and Nut, the Sky-goddess. We have now
five gods in existence; Khepera, the creative principle, Shu, the
atmosphere, Tefnut, the waters above the heavens, Nut, the Sky-goddess,
and Keb, the Earth-god. (E. A. Wallis Budge, Legends of the Gods 1912, pp. xix-xx)
- God informs us that He has created human beings from clay, yet disbelievers dismiss God's words on the basis of what? Creation from clay is a sign
for human beings, since to us clay seems so lifeless and inconceivable
that we could be created from it, yet God has truly designed us in the
best form from this substance, a testimony to His power and wisdom.
Besides, we don't even know how they can remotely use this as an argument
against Islam,
This is what we know of earthly clay:
Clay
is a generic term for an aggregate of hydrous silicate particles less
than 4 ?m (micrometres) in diameter. Clay consists of a variety of
phyllosilicate minerals rich in silicon and aluminium oxides and
hydroxides which include variable amounts of structural water. Clays are
generally formed by the chemical weathering of silicate-bearing rocks
by carbonic acid, but some are formed by hydrothermal activity. Clays
are distinguished from other small particles present in soils such as
silt by their small size, flake or layered shape, affinity for water and
high plasticity index.
There are three main groups of clays: kaolinite-serpentine, illite, and
smectite. Altogether, there are about thirty different types of "pure"
clays in these categories, but most natural clays are mixtures of these
different types, as well as other weathered minerals.
Montmorillonite, with a chemical formula of
(Na,Ca)0.33(Al,Mg)2Si4O10(OH)2·nH2O, is typically formed as a weathering
product of low silica rocks. Montmorillonite is a member of the
smectite group and a major component of bentonite.
Clays sintered in fire were the first ceramic, and remain one of the
cheapest to produce and most widely used materials even in the present
day. Bricks, cooking pots, art objects, dishware, spark plug tips, and
even musical instruments such as the ocarina are all made with clay.
Clay is also used in many industrial processes, such as paper making,
concrete production, and chemical filtering.
Varve (or varved clay) is clay with visible annual layers, formed by
seasonal differences in erosion and organic content. This type of
deposit is common in former glacial lakes from the ice age.
Quick clay is a unique type of marine clay, indigenous to the glaciated
terrains of Norway, Canada, and Sweden. It is a highly sensitive clay,
prone to liquefaction which has been involved in several deadly
landslides.
So, the account of man's creation in ancient cultures:
In Norse Mythology, the first humans were created from logs by Odin and his brothers.
In the Ancient Aryan myths, we find the belief that the first man and woman grew out of plants and bushes.
In the Babylonian myths, Marduk uses the blood of Kingu to create man.
In the Inca mythology, Con Tiqui fashoned human beings out of giant rocks.
In the Mayan mythology, human beings are created by the Heart-of-sky from Maize-corn dough.
In the Navajo nation, humans were believed to be created from the ears of corn.
In the Celtic mythology, human beings are the descendents of the gods.
Amongst Egyptian Mythology, we find the belief that men and women formed from the tears of the god, Khepera.
Is this enough evidence? Quite clearly, the claim that ancient
civilizations naturally believed in creation from clay as they saw
pottery is completely unjustified. The account of creation from clay
spread under the Abrahamic faiths. Therefore, the claim that it is a
"pagan myth" is refuted.
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