75. Al-Qiyamah (Resurrection)

Mecca Period

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

أَيَحْسَبُ الْإِنسَانُ أَن يُتْرَكَ سُدًى ﴿٣٦﴾

75: 36.  Does Man think that he will be left uncontrolled, (without purpose)?

C5828. Suda: has many implications:

• uncontrolled, free to do what he likes:

• without any moral responsibility; not accountable for his actions;

• without a purpose, useless;

• forsaken.

أَلَمْ يَكُ نُطْفَةً مِّن مَّنِيٍّ يُمْنَى ﴿٣٧﴾

75: 37.  Was he not a drop of sperm emitted (in lowly form)?

C5829. Cf. 22:5, where the argument is developed in greater detail.

The briefer argument here may be stated thus. His lowly animal origin makes him no higher than a brute; his fetal development is still that of a brute animal; then at some stage come human limbs and shape; the divine spirit is poured into him, and he is fashioned in due proportion for his higher destiny. Inspite of that the mystery of sex remains in his nature: we are living souls, yet men and women.

Allah Who creates these wonders,-has He not the power to bring the dead to life at the Resurrection?

ثُمَّ كَانَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقَ فَسَوَّى ﴿٣٨﴾

75: 38.  Then did he become a leech-like clot;

then did (Allah) make and fashion (him) in due proportion.

فَجَعَلَ مِنْهُ الزَّوْجَيْنِ الذَّكَرَ وَالْأُنثَى ﴿٣٩﴾

75: 39.  And of him He made two sexes,

male and female.

أَلَيْسَ ذَلِكَ بِقَادِرٍ عَلَى أَن يُحْيِيَ الْمَوْتَى ﴿٤٠﴾

75: 40.  Has not He, (the same), the power to give life to the dead?   

Asad’s Version:

75:36 DOES MAN, then, think that he is to be left to himself to go about at will? 15

(37) Was he not once a [mere] drop of sperm that had been spilt,

(38) and thereafter became a germ -cell - whereupon He created and formed [it] in accordance with what [it] was meant to be, 16

(39) and fashioned out of it the two sexes, the male and the female?

75:40 Is not He, then; able to bring the dead back to life?

[[Asad’s notes - 16 For this rendering of sawwa, see note 1 on 87:2 and note 5 on 91 :7. The stress on God's creating man after he had been a germ-cell is a metonym for His endowing the (originally) lowly organism with what is described as a "soul". ]]