Tafseer of The Prostration · As-Sajda · 32:8
Then He made his posterity out of the extract of a liquid disdained.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
(ثُمَّ جَعَلَ نَسْلَهُ) (Then He made his progeny); that is to say: his offspring (مِن سُلالَةٍ — from an extract); he says: from the water that was drawn from him and came forth out of him. By this is meant only: from an outpouring of his seminal fluid, as the poet said:
"Then she brought him forth, with fine skin and like a lion, an extract (sulāla) from a private part that was unprotected."
And His word: (مِنْ ماءٍ مَهِينٍ); he says: from a weak, thin fluid (a lowly drop of sperm, nuṭfa).
And in accordance with what we have said in its explanation, the exegetes have spoken.
* Mention of who said that:
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: (وَبَدَأَ خَلْقَ الإِنْسَانِ مِنْ طِينٍ) — and that is the creation of Adam; then He made his progeny, that is to say: his offspring, from an extract (sulāla) of a lowly fluid; and the sulāla is: the lowly, weak fluid.
Abū al-Sāʾib related to me, saying: Abū Muʿāwiya related to us, on the authority of al-Aʿmash, on the authority of al-Minhāl, on the authority of Abū Yaḥyā al-Aʿraj, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His word: (مِنْ سُلالَةٍ); he said: the purest part of the fluid.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us; and al-Ḥārith related to me, saying: al-Ḥasan related to us, saying: Warqāʾ related to us — both on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid: (مِنْ ماءٍ مَهِينٍ); he said: weak — the drop of sperm (nuṭfa) of the man. And "mahīn" is of the pattern "faʿīl", derived from the saying of someone: "mahuna fulān", and that is when he becomes lowly and weak.
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Footnotes:
(2) In al-Tāj (sh-k-b): Ishkāb; it is the byname of al-Ḥusayn ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Zaʿlān al-ʿĀmirī, the teacher of Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā.
(3) The verse is in (Majāz al-Qurʾān of Abū ʿUbayda, folio 192-a). He said in explaining the saying of the Exalted: (الذي أحسن كل شيء خلقه): its meaning is: He made beautiful the creation of everything; and the Arabs do this, they place first and last. He said: "And my departure to you …" — the verse; its meaning is: and my departure to you when the night enveloped me. And in (al-Lisān: ḥ-ḍ-n): the two ḥiḍn's of the desert are its two sides, and of the wilderness: its two flanks, and the two ḥiḍn's of the night: its two sides, and the ḥiḍn of the mountain: what it can encompass, and the two ḥiḍn's of a thing: its two sides. And "al-hidān" on the pattern of "kitāb": the foolish, coarse, sluggish man, slow in battle. And in the report of ʿUthmān: "a coward, a sluggish man (hidānan)".
(4) The verse is in Majāz al-Qurʾān of Abū ʿUbayda (folio 192-a) in explaining the saying of the Exalted: (أحسن كل شيء خلقه), after the preceding testimonial verse: "And my departure to you …" — the verse. Then he said: as though the front teeth of Hind and her splendor. And it is also in "al-Lisān: d-b-b": he said: al-Azharī said: and at al-Khalṣāʾ there is sand called al-Dabāb, and opposite it lie many duḥlān (with ḍamma on the dāl); and to this belongs the saying of the poet:
"As though Hind — her front teeth and her splendor when we met at the caves of Dabbāb — were a rain-freshened, untouched meadow, which the spring gently watered, upon ridges that had adorned themselves with herbs."
And "al-adḥāl" and "al-duḥlān" are both plurals of "daḥl" (with fatḥa), and that is a hole with a narrow opening, which then widens at the bottom, so that one can walk within it.
(5) The verse: (Majāz al-Qurʾān of Abū ʿUbayda, folio 162-b) at the saying of the Exalted: (ولقد خلقنا الإنسان من سلالة من طين) (And indeed, We created man from an extract of clay) in Surah al-Muʾminūn (part 18:8); consult it there.
