إِنَّا خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ مِن نُّطْفَةٍ أَمْشَاجٍ نَّبْتَلِيهِ فَجَعَلْنَٰهُ سَمِيعًۢا بَصِيرًا
Innā khalaqna'l-insāna min nuṭfatin amshājin nabtalīhi fa-jaʿalnāhu samīʿan baṣīrā "We created man from a drop that is a mixture — We are testing him — and We made him hearing and seeing."
Root: ن-ط-ف. Its concrete sense is to drip, to seep, to flow little by little. Naṭafa'l-māʾ — the water dripped. From the same root نُطْفَة (nuṭfa) — a drop of water; and according to what the lexicographers transmit, the word is also used for the small amount of water left at the bottom of a vessel.
There are two things the word carries, and both are at work in this context: fewness and fluidity. A drop is what cannot be held and is not counted.
Root: م-ش-ج. To mix, to add one thing to another. Its singular is given as مَشَج or مَشِيج; amshāj is the plural.
And here there is a grammatical question: nuṭfa is singular, amshāj is plural. In Arabic an adjective agrees with what it qualifies in number. How does a singular noun take a plural adjective?
| Explanation | How it works |
|---|---|
| Amshāj is not an adjective but an appositive substitute | "From a drop — mixtures" |
| Nuṭfa here denotes a genus | A singular wording carrying a plural sense; the adjective has agreed with the sense |
| Amshāj qualifies the components of the drop | The vessel is singular, its contents plural |
| The word is used in the singular as well | Though the form amshāj looks plural, it can be used in a singular sense |
All four occur in the classical sources and they make no great difference in meaning. The common point is this: the beginning is not a single piece but a mixture.
The wish to attach this word to a modern description is a tendency often met with in the literature of exegesis. This commentary does not enter upon that tendency, and the grounds for that were written out in detail in the section on Sūrat al-ʿAlaq.
I summarise the position recorded there for the word ʿalaqa: the lexical sense of the word is given and not cut short; the reader may form an association for his own part; but this cannot be presented as the claim of the verse and cannot be turned into a proof of miracle. Five grounds were listed there; the most important was this: if you nail a verse to today's textbook, then when the textbook changes the question arises of where to put the verse. In wanting to defend the text you will have made it fragile.
The same position holds here and I do not repeat it. Amshāj means "mixture". Nor is the work of the verse to give information: it is to say where the being that was not mentioned in the previous verse came from. The sentence is a sentence about standing, not a description.
Root: ب-ل-و. It was treated in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/49; the finding recorded there was this: the usual English renderings show a drift — "trial" and "affliction" both pull towards misfortune — whereas in Arabic the root means to test, to try by wearing down, and it covers testing by good as well. The Qurʾān says this outright: "We test you with evil and with good, as a trial" (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/35).
In the section on Sūrat al-Fajr it was likewise recorded that the same root works in both directions: abundance and straitness are both a testing, and that sūra rejects both inferences at once.
The verb is imperfect (muḍāriʿ) — that is, a work in progress. And it is set in the middle of the sentence, between the creating and the giving of the senses. The order is this:
1. خَلَقْنَا — We created (perfect: done, finished) 2. نَّبْتَلِيهِ — We are testing him (imperfect: ongoing) 3. فَجَعَلْنَٰهُ — and We made him (perfect, with the fāʾ of consequence at its head)
The grammarians count this second element either a circumstantial clause (ḥāl: "while We are testing him") or a causal one (taʿlīl: "in order to test him"). Both readings bring the meaning to the same place.
The real point lies in the particle فَ in the third element. The fāʾ denotes consequence and sequence. So the sentence sets up this: there is a testing, and therefore the senses were given.
Both words are in the intensive form (faʿīl): not merely "hearing" and "seeing", but one in whom the attribute of hearing and of seeing is settled.
And this pair is used in the Qurʾān of God as well — the formula inna'llāha samīʿun baṣīr is common. That is, the verse gives man two qualities named with the same words as the attributes of God. This is one of the most striking moves the Qurʾān makes about man, and it is recorded in the classical sources: the qualities are shared, their measures are not.
Note the order: hearing first, seeing after. The Qurʾān gives this pair in this order almost always. The classical sources offer several explanations for it — that hearing works in the dark too, that it is not cut off in sleep, and that revelation is received by being heard. The last reason is particularly meaningful in the context of this sūra: the twenty-third verse will speak of the sending down of the Qurʾān.
The sentence does not say "We made him one who reasons" or "We gave him knowledge." It names two organs of sense. And the order is set: there is a test (nabtalīhi), and therefore (fa-) hearing and seeing were given.
That is, the verse describes the senses not as equipment but as an instrument of examination. Man hears and sees because he is being tested. Like being given paper and pen in an examination.
First: the senses are not neutral. The giving of an instrument means that it will be asked what was done with that instrument. The Qurʾān says this plainly elsewhere: "Hearing, sight and heart — each of these will be held answerable" (al-Isrāʾ 17/36).
Second: the test is set up by something being given to man, not by something being withheld. The word order of the verse says this: the sentence of testing comes before the sentence of giving.