Surah Al-Hijr 15:26-44 - Quran Translation Commentary

(15:39) He said, ‘My Lord! For Your putting me into error,³⁶ I shall deck (sins)³⁷ fair unto them in the earth, and surely I shall put them all into error.³⁸

(15:40) Excepting Your chosen servants among them.’³⁹

(15:41) He said, ‘This is a path unto Me, straight.⁴⁰

(15:42) Surely, My own servants, you have no power over them except those who follow you of the deviators.⁴¹

(15:43) And indeed, Jahannum is the place promised: for them all.

(15:44) It has seven gates.⁴² For each of the gates is a class of them assigned.’⁴³

Commentary

26. The textual word “salsal” is used for dried clay that has not been fired in the oven. When knocked, it emits sound. (After it is fired, it is known as “fakhkhar” - Zamakhshari).

Ibn ‘Abbas has said that man was made from three elements: (i) an unadulterated sticking clay (al-tin al-lazib), (ii) the kind of clay from which pottery is made (salsal), and (iii) a mud which has some sludge in it (hama’ masnun). Some others have said that “salsal” is a clay that stinks (Ibn Jarir).

27. “Hama’” (sing.: ham`atun) of the textual “hama’i’masnun” is for dark wet clay. “Masnun” has several connotations: (i) fetid, putrid, stinking, (ii) changed, altered, [or transmuted, as Asad put it], (iii) fashioned, patterned, shaped, etc. (Ibn Jarir); as well as (iv) smooth (Ibn Kathir).

In short, the process was something like this: to begin with, it was dust (turab) composed of various elements. Then it was wetted. It became adhesive clay (tin). Then it was left to itself until it became (transmuted) putrid slime (hama’i’masnun). Finally, it was left to dry and it became “salsal” (Qurtubi).

Life:

Qur’anic verses are unambiguous about creation of man at Allah’s Hand. A hadith says that when Allah (swt) blew the spirit into Adam (asws), the first thing that happened to him was that he sneezed. Thus, we are left in no doubt about the creation: he was human in the complete sense. But science has other theories. We propose to demonstrate here that those theories do not rest on any solid ground.

Firstly, science has not one, rather several theories about the origin of life. But, although every theory is supported with evidence, they all lack credibility because they do not explain the process fully. In addition, every theory raises a few questions for which there are no satisfactory answers. In any case, before looking into the question of the origin of life, we need to first determine what life is. Or, to be more specific, what according to the non-Muslim mind, life is? Encyclopedia Britannica (Macropedia) states under the article on ‘Life’ that: “There is no generally accepted definition of life.” Then it goes on to define it in five ways.

“Physiological: For many years a physiological definition of life was popular. Life was defined as any system capable of performing a number of such functions as eating, metabolizing, excreting, breathing, moving, growing, reproducing and being responsive to external stimuli. But many such properties are either present in machines that nobody is willing to call alive, or absent from organisms that everybody is willing to call alive.”

“Metabolic: It describes a living object as an object with definite boundary, continually exchanging some of its materials with its surroundings, but without altering its general properties, at least over some period of time. But again there are exceptions. There are seeds and spores that remain, so far as is known, perfectly dormant and totally without metabolic activity at low temperatures for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years but that can revive perfectly well upon being subjected to more clement conditions.”

“Biochemical: A biochemical or molecular biological definition see living organisms as systems that contain reproductive hereditary information coded in nucleic acid molecules and that metabolize by controlling the rate of chemical reactions ... In many respects this is more satisfying .. (but) .. there are, even here, hints of counterexamples.”

“Genetic: A genetic definition of life would be: a system capable of evolution by natural selection.”

“Thermodynamic: (According to this), Living systems might be defined as localized regions where there is a continuous increase in disorder.”

The divergence in definitions should tell us something about the confusion. It stems from refusal to recognize the soul as the life-giving property. That results in the inability to differentiate between different kinds of lives: higher and lower, human and non-human. The recognition would have led them to a proper definition of life.

Mystery also surrounds the question regarding the origin of life. There is no satisfactory explanation as to how it arose. There are several hypotheses. To quote Britannica again:

1. The origin of life is a result of a supernatural event: that is, one permanently beyond the descriptive powers of physics and chemistry.

2. Life - particularly the simple form - spontaneously and readily arises from nonliving matter in short periods of time, today as in the past.

3. Life is co-eternal with matter and has no beginning; life arrived on the Earth at the time of the origin of the earth or shortly thereafter.

4. Life arose on the early earth by a series of progressive chemical reactions requiring highly improbable chemical reactions. Such reactions may have been likely or may have required one or more highly improbable chemical events” (Encyclopedia Britannica, art.: ‘Life’).

In view of the failure to ascertain the origin of life, confusion prevails in every department of biological science. To be sure, there are many scientists who would rather avoid discussing the question altogether. Darwin too, showed his frustration, and tried to dismiss the question by saying: “It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.” This of course is a defeatist attitude. The question will not go away by such means.

Attempts at explanation, therefore, go on. Some say that “life is written into the laws of nature.” That is, it is in the fitness of things that life should originate and evolve. Obviously, by the use of words “laws of nature,” the scientists avoid any reference to a Supernatural Being who originated it. They would rather have us believe: “nature did it.” And nature is nobody! It is not surprising, therefore, that a recent scientific work called “Our Place in the Cosmos,” (by Fred Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, Phoenix pub. 1996) has the first chapter entitled, “On the tendency of human societies to depart indefinitely from the objective of truth!”).

Nevertheless, since the question persists, there are a few fresh conjectures. In the words of a scientist: “It now appears that the first organisms lived deep underground, entombed within geothermally heated rocks in pressure-cooker conditions. Only later did they migrate to the surface. Astonishingly, descendants of these primordial microbes are still there, kilometers beneath our feet.” (Paul Davies, “The 5th Miracle”, Preface, Touchstone Books, 1999).

Yet others believe that life came from Mars. Examination of meteorites on the earth, presumably of Martian origin, has led to the discovery of traces of “remnants” of microbes (and not microbes themselves). Some scientists believe life evolved twice, once on the earth and a second time on planet Mars. But, the latter notion defeats the evolutionary theory, because, if life originated in Mars, why has it firmly refused to evolve into higher life forms? Some other scientists, therefore, pooh-pooh the idea of life originating in Mars and landing on earth from there. Another suggestion is that it originated somewhere deep in space and must have been brought to earth by a comet!

Some scientists maintain that “life is a freak accident of chemistry, unique to earth, and that the subsequent emergence of complex organisms, including conscious beings, is likewise purely the chance outcome of a gigantic cosmic lottery.” (Davies, “Our place in the Universe,” preface). Obviously, the statement is of philosophical nature, rather than scientific.

The above demonstrates the confusion in which the scientists are about the central issue of what life is, and how it arose. Next is the question of how man appeared on earth. This is because, those who could neither define life nor determine its origin assert, that it evolved from the simplest to develop into the complex, the chain ending with humans. In other words, and according to the evolutionary hypothesis, single celled animals gave rise to multiple celled animals, invertebrates to aquatic vertebrates, i.e. fishes, which evolved into amphibians, which gave rise to reptiles. Over a long period of time, some reptiles evolved into birds, while others evolved into mammals culminating in the appearance of man. The theory is simple, catchy and speciously logical. But is it true?

This of course is not the place to refute the theory. Volumes have been written to defend it and volumes have been written to refute it. (It is noticeable though, that the more that is written in favor of evolution, the weaker the theory gets). On our part, we shall adopt a simpler method to demonstrate that life could have neither emerged accidentally, nor is the theory of evolution a tenable one. For that, we present a few details to demonstrate how complex life is. Complexity rules out chance occurrence.

Humans are made up of limbs and parts: hands, feet, heart, kidney, bones, etc. In the final analysis, the limbs and parts are made of specialized cells. The cells are a microscopic entity, invisible to the eye, made from some two dozen elements only, (although more than 100 exist in the natural state). A cell wall, thousands of inner machinery (known as organelles, which can also be referred to as different kinds of proteins), a nucleus containing the DNA molecule, (46 chromosomes that carry the genetic code), a nucleolus, (a nucleus within the nucleus, whose functions are not well-understood), are in short the constituents of every cell. The cell is covered with a cell wall (Plasma membrane), with pores through which, chemical gate-passes are required, for in and out flow of material.

Within the cell, commands are issued, material mobilized, manufacturing undertaken, quality tests carried out, and final products transported across to various parts of the cell. The movement of the material along the various pathways of a cell is analogous to the movement of trucks carrying different types of cargo along the various arteries of a city. But the difference is that the cell is sort of spherical and transport arteries run across in every direction without getting entangled with one another: a miracle by itself. Several types of transports require definite traffic patterns to ensure that materials destined for different locations are accurately delivered to the appropriate sites. Great advances have been made in the study of these traffic patterns. Vesicles and their protein cargo are directed to their proper destination by specific targeting signals that are carried by the proteins themselves. To imagine the complication, one of the thousands of organelles of an invisible cell is mitochondria. Each organelle has different functions. Mitochondria convert chemical energy into power, and are likened to power houses. Now, there are some 1500 of mitochondria in every cell!

The DNA of every cell consists of 46 double helical strands. Each strand is studded with a tiny molecule called ‘nucleotide base’ that number, altogether, 3 billion. If all the DNA, of all the human cells were stretched out, the string will reach the moon and back 8,000 times. The DNA molecule has been estimated to have information content of around 1,000,000,000,000 (one thousand billion) bits, comparable to about hundred million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. It is the blue print of life and is contained in each and every one of the 100 trillion cells from which an average human body is made. These blue prints tell everything about a man: from the size of the body, to the color of the eyes, to the diseases he carries, to finally, by implication, even his likes and dislikes. (Some scientists are looking for a gene for intelligence, while others have found a "God Gene"!) It also has the message about where each of the hundred trillion cells will be located in a body. The cells can be likened to bricks of a vast, massively built sky-scraper city. Every brick of every building contains a blue print of the entire city, neatly folded and placed in the center of the brick, containing every little detail thinkable, so that, if the building collapsed, a single brick would be enough to re-build the building, and if the city was destroyed, a single brick would be enough to re-create the information and re-build the city as it was before destruction.

But the similarity is incomplete. A cell has the amazing ability to absorb material, swell in size, and, in a couple of hours or days, split into two: with each of the daughter cells being exact replication of the mother cell, and each of the two daughter cells with the blue print for the whole body within their nucleus! Millions of cells are made in the body each minute. Some take a few hours to be replaced, others a few days, while some longer. In about four months, most of the cells would have been replaced, and a man is, in chemical sense, a new person.

Thus, the cell is like a chemical industry, which, if humans were to attempt to imitate, would be spread over a few square kilometers. But, this industry of human imitation will not split into two, replicating all its inner components, functioning independently, doing everything that the mother industry was doing.

The DNA (the blue print) which is sited in the nucleus, is the most amazing part of the system. Operating from within its inner walls, a sort of dark room, well protected from any outside intruder, as no fort was ever protected, it sends commands, and issues virtual blue prints to manufacture various cellular components. It is capable of making thousands of different kinds of proteins, even the while it is busy replicating itself. More strangely, since duplication is a time consuming affair, the long DNA strand can, to cut on time, start duplicating itself at several places at the same time, while it is also issuing commands for making proteins or other organelles.

These proteins require 1000-2000 different enzymes for their manufacture. Their structure is so unique, and the complication so great that the famous British scientist Hoyle has estimated that whereas the probability of the chance assembly of a single protein is one in 10160 over 1048 years, the probability of a thousand enzymes coming the right way to form one living cell has the staggering chance of one in 1040,000. Impossible is too weak a word to describe the above in terms of chance.

Proteins in turn are made of amino-acids. A biologist writes: “There is obviously an immense variety of possible amino-acids, but it is a startling fact that only some twenty are found in proteins...” (J.Z. Young, An Introduction to the Study of Man, Oxford, 1979, p. 31).

Finally, amino-acids themselves are made from natural elements, and a living body uses only 16 to 24 of the total of a large number available in nature. Young writes, “This is a very small selection, and certainly neither a random one nor one based upon the relative frequency of the elements outside the living world. Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen are, it is true, among the commonest elements of the universe, but they are present on earth in proportions very different from those in living organisms” (Ibid, p. 21). The author then proceeds to show that those elements that are abundant on the earth are used sparingly by the living bodies, whereas those that are rare, have been used generously by living organisms, leading to the conclusion that there had been a choice. Chance could not hare played a role in the selection.

What about the DNA? Could it have come into existence by itself?

The Encyclopedia Britannica states: “The number of possible ways of putting nucleotides together in a chromosome is enormous. The renowned geneticist H.J. Muller estimated that in a human chromosome there are about 4 x 109 base pairs. Each base pair position could be filled by any one of four possible bases; accordingly, the number of possible varieties of human chromosome is 44x109, an inconceivably large number... Thus a human being is an extraordinary improbable object” (art., ‘Life’).

(Note: the last figure above is 4 to the power of 4 to the power of 109, which the author’s computer is incapable of showing).

Yet, the scientists hang on to the belief that life came into being by itself, only once, some 4 billion years ago. They also assert that because of changed conditions, the feat cannot be repeated. That is, all present life being replication of previous life, new life can never come into existence. Attempts are being made to construct a short DNA strand and insert in a bacteria cell, in an operation called "Creation of Synthetic Life." Since molecules carry hidden messages in them (in this case stolen from Nature, so to say), and since these molecules are assured the "body" of the bacteria (less its original DNA) in which it will grow, there is good chance of a new species of bacteria coming into existence. The scientists are not sure how this half real, half artificial bacterial will affect other living bodies. They are assuring anyhow, that this monster will not be allowed to escape the labs.

The confusion in which the scientists are, as a result of their intransigence and refusal to acknowledge facts of existence, is well reflected in the following from a leading evolutionist biologists who is talking about one of the most essential enzymes for life. He writes: “The probability of the formation of a Cytochrome-C sequence is as likely as zero. That is, if life requires a certain sequence, it can be said that this has a probability likely to be realized once in the whole universe. Otherwise, some metaphysical powers beyond our definition should have acted in its formation. To accept the latter is not appropriate to the goals of science. We therefore have to look into the first hypothesis.”

Obviously, it is hopeless to change the opinion of blind men fanatically clinging to fanciful ideas. The above details, much simplified and shortened for a general reader, are enough to demonstrate that to rule out a chance creation of life is scientifically the more accurate thing to do. As for the similarities visible in various biological organisms, they in fact, instead of leading to an evolutionary theory, tell us that the Creator used the same primary ideas for His various creations: similar parts, limbs, cells and genetic codes, but different species, each according to the environment (Au.).

28. According to the Salaf, the textual “samum” is used for an extremely hot fire. Ibn ‘Abbas said that Iblis was originally a tribe of the larger angel-kind (Ibn Jarir).

29. The translation is literal. But the meaning is not. The words “My spirit,” is by way of honor, just as in this Qur’an itself, “Allah’s House”, “Allah’s camel,” etc., or (Nisa’, 17), “And a spirit from Him” (Qurtubi, Shawkani). Asad explains: “God’s breathing of His spirit” into man is obviously a metaphor for His endowing him with life and consciousness: that is, with a soul.” There is no room, ‘Uthmani quotes from Imam Razi, to imagine “hulul wa itthihad (interfusion and unison).”

The word "ruh" has also been used by the Qur'an in the sense of "light of guidance", as in verse 22 of Surah Al-Mujadalah. It says

,

لَا تَجِدُ قَوْمًا يُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ يُوَادُّونَ مَنْ حَادَّ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ وَلَوْ كَانُوا آبَاءَهُمْ أَوْ أَبْنَاءَهُمْ أَوْ إِخْوَانَهُمْ أَوْ عَشِيرَتَهُمْ أُولَئِكَ كَتَبَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمُ الْإِيمَانَ وَأَيَّدَهُمْ بِرُوحٍ مِنْهُ [المجادلة : 22]

"You will not find a people who believe in Allah and the Last Day having affection for those who oppose Allah and His Messenger, even if they are their fathers, or their sons, or their brothers, or their kindred. Those, He has inscribed faith upon their hearts, and has strengthened them with a Spirit from Himself" (Au.).

This being the first occurrence of the word “ruh”, Alsui discusses its nature over several pages, but without any substance. He picks up Munawi’s statement which is perhaps worth quoting here: Many individual scholars and schools of thought have spent their goodly energies trying to resolve this issue. But no one has been able to say anything convincing. Of the thousand or so opinions concerning the nature of the soul, none is more trustworthy than another because every one of them is based on sheer conjecture.

30. A report in Muslims says,

لَمَّا صَوَّرَ اللَّهُ آدَمَ فِى الْجَنَّةِ تَرَكَهُ مَا شَاءَ اللَّهُ أَنْ يَتْرُكَهُ فَجَعَلَ إِبْلِيسُ يُطِيفُ بِهِ يَنْظُرُ مَا هُوَ فَلَمَّا رَآهُ أَجْوَفَ عَرَفَ أَنَّهُ خُلِقَ خَلْقًا لاَ يَتَمَالَكُ

“When Allah had fashioned Adam in Paradise, He left him to himself for a while. Iblis circled around him several times trying to figure out what it is. When he found him hollow, he knew that this is a creation that will not be able to control itself (against desires) - Qurtubi.

31. “Iblis: the name has in it the root-idea of desperation or rebellion” (Yusuf Ali).

32. Either he was originally of the angels, as some scholars have thought, or was included among those that were commanded, because Iblis lived among them (Kashshaf, Razi, Qurtubi and others).

33. His true reason was given in Al-A`raf, verse 12, where he said,

أَنَا خَيْرٌ مِنْهُ خَلَقْتَنِي مِنْ نَارٍ وَخَلَقْتَهُ مِنْ طِينٍ [الأعراف : 12]

“I am better than he. You created me from Fire, while You created him from slime” (Shawkani).

34. Yusuf Ali comments: “The curse on Iblis remained, i.e., he was deprived of Allah’s grace and became in the spiritual world what an outlaw is in a political kingdom.”

35. Imam Razi thinks that when Iblis said, “Allow me respite until the Judgment-day”, his intention was that he should not be allowed to die until then. And, if he did not die until then, he would not die at all, since no one is going to die after the Judgment-day. Therefore, Allah said that he is allowed respite until a known day. And that “known day” is, according to the prevalent opinion, the day when the Trumpet is blown for the first time.

However, in view of the ayah 35, the curse will remain on him through the Day of Judgment also, that is, after death and resurrection too (Au.).

36. What Iblis meant is: ‘Since You put me to the test, in which I failed, You are the cause of My error’ (Zamakhshari).

Yusuf Ali adds: “Satan cannot be straight or truthful even before Allah. By his own arrogance and rebellion he fell; he attributes this to Allah.”

37. The word in parenthesis is following the explanation as in Ibn Jarir.

38. “Iblis is powerless against Allah. He turns therefore against man” (Yusuf Ali).

“Thus, the Qur’an makes it clear that despite his ostensible ‘rebellion’ against his Creator, Satan fulfils a definite function in God’s plan: he is the eternal tempter who enables man to exercise his God-given freedom of choice between good and evil and, thus, to become a being endowed with moral free will” (Asad).

39. Dahhak has said that the allusion by the words “the chosen servants” is to the faithful (Ibn Jarir).

40. The translation herewith follows the understanding of Mujahid, Hasan and others as recorded by Ibn Jarir.

41. What the verse means is that Allah does not allow His chosen slaves (those who chose Him over Satan: Au.), to be wholly captured by Satan and His prompting. An error here, an error there, is not ruled out, as in the case of Adam and many others (Qurtubi, Ma`arif).

Asad adds: “.. Satan will thus address his erstwhile followers on Judgment Day, ‘I had no power at all over you: I but called you - and you responded unto me.’”

42. ‘Ali, ‘Ikrimah and others have said that there are seven Hells, one upon another. Ibn Jurayj has named them as, Jahannum (hell), as the top most, then Laza (raging flame), Al-Hutamah (the Crusher), Al-Sa`ir (the blazing flame), Al-Saqar (hell-fire), Al-Jahim (the blazing fire), and Al-Haawiyyah, which is the bottom most. Abu Jahl is in Al-Jahim (Ibn Jarir). A similar statement has come down from Ibn ‘Abbas also, but, his ordering is different, and he did not mention Abu Jahl (Ibn Kathir). Qurtubi thinks that the bottom most is Jahim (Qurtubi); and Jahannum is a common name, applicable to anyone of them, as well as to all (Uthmani).

Some other commentators have said that the reference is to seven doors of Jahannum (Thanwi and others).

43. That is, every one of the unbelievers will be assigned to a specific Hell in accordance with his deeds (Ibn Jarir from Qatadah). The Prophet said in a hadith of Muslim:

إِنَّ مِنْهُمْ مَنْ تَأْخُذُهُ النَّارُ إِلَى كَعْبَيْهِ وَمِنْهُمْ مَنْ تَأْخُذُهُ إِلَى حُجْزَتِهِ وَمِنْهُمْ مَنْ تَأْخُذُهُ إِلَى عُنُقِهِ

“Some will have the Fire up to their ankles, others will have it up to their waist, and yet others will have it up to their necks” (Ibn Kathir).