<Home> <Bioethics> <Obstetrics and Gynaecology> <Metaphysical Development>

"Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation) before We clove them asunder'? And We made from water every living thing'? Will they not then believe'?"  (21 :30)

"And God has created every kinetic creature from water; of them there are some that creep on their bellies, some that walk on two legs and some that walk on four." (24:45)

The other constituents of the body of Man are the same as make the earth and also not special to Man only.

"It is He who has produced you from the earth and settled you therein" ( 11:61)

This mixture of earth and water makes mud or clay.

"God began the creation of man from clay" (37:11)

And yet as is quite obvious there is much more to man than his clay composition. Neither physiology nor anatomy are the basis of the uniueness of man.

As we know it, man is the unique creature endowed with the concept of good and evil, a built-in mechanism to differentiate between them and an intrinsic will to make a choice and act upon it. Living beings we know of, do live upon instinct alone and are fully programmed to be guided by it. Living creatures we are told about by religious scriptures viz the angels, also act upon their given good nature and do not sin because they do not know how to sin. Man is the only species with freedom of choice and hence is subject to accountability. Such must be the 'amana', referred to in the Quran as:

"We did indeed offer the 'Amana' (Trust) to the heavens and the earth and th emountains but they declined to undertake it being afraid thereof, but man undertook it."

This unique endowment possessed by man is illustrated in various sites of the Quran, denoting that on top of the earthly element in man which is controlled by non-unique biological laws, man has received Spirit from God, and this is indeed human specific:

"Behold! Your Lord said to the angels:  I am about to create man from sounding clay from mud moulded into shape, when I have fashioned him and blown into him of My spirit, fall down prostrating yourselves before him." (15:28)

The nature of this "Spirit" from God we do not know, and will never know:

"They put questions to you concerning the Spirit, say the Spirit is at my Lord's command and of knowledge only a meagre part has been imparted to you." (17:85)

It is certainly metaphysical, and is manifested in encoding man over countless generations so as to embrace such values as conscience, self criticism, self restraint and the transcendence above the mere calls of his clay structure.

Such encodement that started with Adam and has since been passed down through human geneaology must in all probability reside in the genes which are our only unbroken chain linking us to Adam and him to us, and which are known to transmit behavioural, conceptual as well as physical traits.   This heritage almost glows as one reads in the Quran:

"When your Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam from their loins their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves (saying): Am I not your Lord?  They said yes we do testify.  (This) lest you say on the Day of Judgement: of this we were never mindful." (7:172)

"He who has made everything which He created most good.  He began the creation of man with clay, and made his progeny from a quintessence of the nature of a despised fluid.  Then He fashioned him i due proportion and blew into him from His spirit.  And he gave you hearing and sight and intellect." (32:7-9)

Humanity noble Humanity is uniquely characteristic of Man and is encoded in his gene legacy. It entails freedom and accountability unshared by any other creature, awareness of the Creator on the part of the created, that God's whisper in the depths of every human heart that we call conscience, and that natural inherent guidance that Islam calls "Fitra".

"By the soul and the proportion and order given to it and its inspiration as to its wrong and its right truly he succeeds that purifies it and he fails that corrupts it."(91:7-10)