al-Sajda 32:7-9

Alladhī aḥsana kulla shayʾin khalaqahū wa badaʾa khalqa'l-insāni min ṭīn · Thumma jaʿala naslahū min sulālatin min māʾin mahīn · Thumma sawwāhu wa nafakha fīhi min rūḥihī wa jaʿala lakumu'l-samʿa wa'l-abṣāra wa'l-afʾidah, qalīlan mā tashkurūn

"He is the one who made beautiful everything He created. He began the creation of man from clay. Then He made his progeny from the essence of a despised water. Then He shaped him and breathed into him of His own spirit. He gave you hearing, eyes and hearts. How little you give thanks!"

Two readings of this sentence are transmitted, and because the difference changes the meaning it must be recorded:

Both readings are transmitted; both are recorded in the sources. I do not impose a preference.

The difference between them is this, and it is verifiable: on the first reading the beauty is ascribed to the things created, on the second to the act of creating. The result is close, but the emphasis differs: one praises the outcome, the other the operation.

أَحْسَنَ — root ح-س-ن. The pattern is Form IV and here has the sense "he made beautiful" — not "more beautiful" (the elative). The word order of the sentence shows this: aḥsana takes an object.

And there is a detail of word order worth recording: kulla shayʾ — everything without exception. Immediately afterwards a single thing is set apart and gone into: man. That is, the sentence comes down from the general to the particular: everything → man → man's progeny → his organs.

طِين — clay: a mixture of earth and water. And the verb must be recorded: badaʾa — "he began".

I record this as an observation: the verse does not say "He created man from clay"; it says "He began the creation of man from clay". The verb states a starting point, not a list of materials. Indeed the next sentence continues with thumma — an interval is placed between the beginning and the coming of the progeny.

سُلَالَة — root: س-ل-ل. The root is analysed here for the first time in the series.

The concrete sense of the root: to draw a thing slowly out of its sheath, sliding it free. Salla'l-sayfa — he drew the sword from its scabbard. From the same root:

Both sides of the word work here at once, and this is a matter the lexicographers record: sulāla carries both the sense of the filtering of an essence and that of the continuation of a line. The verse already says naslahū (his progeny) — that is, two words say the same idea from two separate roots.

نَسْل — root: ن-س-ل. This root too occurs here for the first time in the series. The core given by the lexicographers: to come away from a thing and fall, to be shed. Nasala'l-shaʿr — the hair was shed. And from this comes the sense "offspring, line": what comes away from the stock.

The picture in the two roots looks the same way: sulāla tells of what is filtered out, nasl of what comes away. I record this as an observation about the language.

مَّآءٍ مَّهِينٍ — the root م-ه-ن was treated in al-Mursalāt 77/20 (māʾin mahīn) and in al-Qalam (mahīn). I do not repeat it here. The core: counted worthless, despised, weak.

What belongs here is the coming together of the two words, and it is worth recording:

sulālatin min māʾin mahīn — the essence of a despised water.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is that the two words carry opposite values: sulāla states what has been selected, what has been filtered — that is, it raises. Mahīn states what is counted worthless — that is, it lowers. Two opposite values in a single construct.

And this must be read together with the aḥsana kulla shayʾ of the preceding sentence: the one who made everything beautiful builds man's line from the essence of what is despised. The verse looks for beauty not in the material but in the operation.

سَوَّىٰ — root س-و-ي: to make equal, to level, to bring to completeness. The root has been treated in several places in the series — in al-Infiṭār 82/7 (fa-sawwāka fa-ʿadalak), in al-Aʿlā 87/2 (alladhī khalaqa fa-sawwā), and in al-Qiyāma. I do not repeat it here.

And this root will come back in the eighteenth verse of the sūra: lā yastawūn — "they are not equal". The same root, one in the making and one in the ruling. This is a repetition that can be verified within the sūra, and it will be tabulated separately at the end.

مِن رُّوحِهِ — "of His own spirit". A note per the method (Method): no account of the manner is produced about this construct. What the lexicographers and the exegetes mostly record is that the particle min here does not state a part; what it states is relation and honour. (Indeed the same structure is seen in constructs such as "the House of God", "the she-camel of God".) I transmit this explanation as it has been transmitted and go no further.

The triad of ear, eye and heart has been treated in three places in the series. This is the fourth, and the four must be read together:

In all four places the same three doors are counted; in each place in a different condition.

The meaning of the order was recorded in al-Aḥqāf 46/26 and holds here too: the movement is from outside inwards — what is heard → what is seen → what is weighed within. The root of the word أَفْـِٔدَة (ف-ء-د, the burning of an ember; fuʾād, the kindled side of the heart) was analysed there; I do not repeat it here.

The difference between al-Aḥqāf and al-Sajda is worth recording, because both are sentences of giving:

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the pronoun and the tense of the verb: al-Aḥqāf recounts a finished example in the third person; al-Sajda turns the same triad into the second person and leaves it in the present. That is, the example is turned back upon the hearer himself.

قَلِيلًا مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ — the word order must be recorded: qalīlan has been brought forward (taqdīm). In Arabic an element brought forward carries emphasis. And mā here is either a strengthener of the negation or the particle of the verbal noun; both parsings are transmitted. In either case the ruling of the sentence comes out at the same place: thanks fall short beside what is given.

And this sentence will form a link with the twelfth verse of the sūra. It is shown below.