76 Sura Al-Insan (Man)
Period Uncertain
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
هَلْ
أَتَى عَلَى
الْإِنسَانِ
حِينٌ مِّنَ
الدَّهْرِ لَمْ
يَكُن شَيْئًا
مَّذْكُورًا ﴿١﴾
76: 1. Has there not been over Man a long period of Time when he was nothing --
(not even) mentioned?
C5830. The undoubted fact is mentioned in the form of a question, to get the assent of man. It is certain that the physical world existed long before man was ever heard of or mentioned, as geological records prove. It is also true that the world existed long before man came on the scene: see 2:30-31. Man is here taken in a generic sense.
C5831. Dahr is Time as a whole, or for a long period.
Time used to be deified by the Pagan Arabs, as explained in the introduction to this Surah. An analogy can be found in the Greek ideas connected with Chronos or Kronos, themselves a blend of different myths. Kronos (or Time), they said, was the father of Zeus himself.
إِنَّا
خَلَقْنَا
الْإِنسَانَ
مِن نُّطْفَةٍ
أَمْشَاجٍ
نَّبْتَلِيهِ
فَجَعَلْنَاهُ
سَمِيعًا
بَصِيرًا ﴿٢﴾
76: 2. Verily We created Man from a drop of mingled sperm, in order to try him:
so We gave him (the gifts) of Hearing and Sight.
C5832. Mingled: the female ovum has to be fertilised with the male sperm before a new animal can be born. Man as an animal has this humble origin. But he has been given the gift of certain faculties of receiving instruction (typified by Hearing) and of intellectual and spiritual insight (typified by Sight).
His life has therefore a meaning: with a certain amount of free-will, he is to be vicegerent on earth (2:30). But he must be trained and tried, and that is the whole problem of human life.
Asad’s Version:
76:1 HAS THERE [not] been an endless span of time 1 before man [appeared - a time] when he was not yet a thing to be thought of? 2
(76:2) Verily, it is We who have created man out of a drop of sperm intermingled, 3 so that We might try him [in his later life]: and therefore We made him a being endowed with hearing and sight.
[[Asad’s notes - 1 Implying, according to all the classical commentators, "there has indeed been an immensely long [or "endless"] span of time" - the interrogative particle hal having here the positive meaning of qad. However, this meaning can be brought out equally well by interpolating the word "not".
2 Lit., "a thing mentioned" or "mentionable" - i.e., non-existent even as a hypothetical concept. The purport of this statement is a refutation of the blasphemous "anthropocentric" world-view, which postulates man as he exists - and not any Supreme Being - as the centre and ultimate reality of all life.
3 Sc, "with the female ovum"; cf 86:6-7. ]]