الَّذي خَلَقَكَ فَسَوّاكَ فَعَدَلَكَ
في أَيِّ صورَةٍ ما شاءَ رَكَّبَكَ
Who created you and proportioned you, and gave you an upright nature.
And composed you in any form that He wished.
EXPOSITION
Amongst the proofs of God being a generous Lord (verse 6) is that He has created you from a drop of semen when you were nothing, and then proportioned you by providing for you all that you would require in life, such as the organs you require to survive, and causing them all to function in harmony. This of course refers to man in general, and does not include specific or individual cases where humans may be born with disabilities. It is along the lines of other verses such as, We certainly created man in the best of forms (95:4), and So We made him [man] endowed with hearing and sight (76:2), even if some individuals – as exceptions – are not born in the best of forms (physically), or are born blind or deaf. In fact, these exceptions also reveal the blessings of God, for it is only by witnessing the lack of bounties that one appreciates their need, and at the same time those in whom these are lacking become a source of evoking kindness, mercy, and love in other humans, who help and nurture their growth. See the next verse for a discussion on this issue and why God does not interfere in the birth of physically disabled human beings.
Verse 7 therefore attempts to remove the heedlessness of man and to show him how, from conception to completion, he is indebted to his Lord, for all that he is and all that he has; and thus his life is nothing but a loan from the generous Lord and therefore he is held in ransom.
The fact that He created you is an act of generosity, says Rāzī, because being brought into existence is better than non-existence; furthermore, God was under no obligation to create, but He chose to do so. How can you be unfaithful to Allah, [seeing that] you were lifeless and He gave you life? (2:28). Do you disbelieve in Him who created you from dust, then from a drop of [seminal] fluid, then fashioned you as a man? (18:37).
And proportioned you means that He made you without discrepancies such as making one of your limbs noticeably longer than the other, or one eye wider than the other, and so forth, for which Rāzī quotes from Ibn Abbas who said concerning this verse: ‘He made you upright, balanced, and of pleasing appearance, and not bent-over like a beast [walking on fours].’ And according to Ali al-Fārisī: ‘Because of that perfecting, He made you capable of reason, power, and reflection, a perfection that is unmatched by anything else in this world.’
Man is thus invited to ponder over his creation and formation, of even individual organs such as his heart, his eyes, ears, and so on, all of which reveal the power of its Creator, simultaneous with His generosity, kindness, and love; from the vision of the eye, the strength of the spine, the rigidness of the limbs, to the softness of the palms, or the hardness of teeth. This is in addition to the fact that each organ works to support another, whether it be the tear duct, the eyelids and the eyes, or the stomach, pancreas, kidneys, liver, and intestines, or the heart and the lungs, veins, and arteries.
Consider, for example, an individual process in a human body such as the digestive system: the opening in the head, i.e. the mouth, the use of teeth and saliva, the lifting with fingers and a flexible wrist with just the right strength, force, balance, and focus, the tongue and the swallowing, and so forth. And this is just one small aspect. There are thousands of other such blessings that cannot even be enumerated and all this is given to man without any benefit to the Creator and without Him holding back the flow of His blessings even when man is ungrateful and forgets to thank his Lord.
This can lead to reflection outside man’s creation as well. It is as if the verse calls out to man: just as you see harmony in your body, why do you not see the perfection in the rest of creation around you?
When referring to the whole of humankind, any form in verse 8 means in the form that was best for you as dictated by God’s wisdom and love (though He has the power to do as He pleases). But any form, at an individual level, means the different faces, features, and statures each person possesses. Amongst His signs is that despite the billions of humans, past, present, and future, you rarely find humans that are indistinguishably identical. All humans have the same organs and the same number: one nose, two eyes, two ears, and so on. Yet there is an almost infinite spectrum amongst them of colour, height, weight, and shape, each aspect having an endless continuum. Even more miraculous is that despite each individual’s uniqueness, they also show a resemblance to their lineage and nothing appears to be random; each person is given his or her features based on wisdom and knowledge of what good lies in it for them, even if that good or benefit escapes their understanding. And this miracle of uniqueness, despite having the same limbs and organs, allows creatures of one species to recognise each other. Animals such as sheep or pigeons, for example, may all appear the same to humans. Yet even amongst them they know each other as being different and with unique properties that allow them to exist as mates and even communities (6:38). Thus He has given every creation a form and not even two trees are identical.
Though He composed you in any form that He wished because He has the power to do so, what He wishes is always based on wisdom and love, and is never a random act of frivolity. In this regard, some questions may arise: why does He sometimes create a person disabled? And if it is said that the disability is not His doing and man is somehow responsible for the deficiencies at birth, then why does He allow it when He takes credit for proportioning His creatures?
To the first question, we answer that God intends to create everything and everyone perfectly but there is a delicate balance to His creating and proportioning that can easily be interfered with by man or other external factors. God, in fact, takes pride in being the best of creators (23:14, 37:125, 95:4). If we think of God’s creating process as a vertical dimension emanating from Him to His creation, human (or any other) interference can be imagined as a horizontal interference that disturbs the delicate order of things. Common examples of man’s interference – intentional or in ignorance – are a mother taking drugs or alcohol during pregnancy, or a medication prescribed to pregnant or nursing mothers that is later found to be harmful, or perhaps incompatible blood types between a father and a mother, or the influence of pollution, a particular food, or the environment, or neglecting advice from God such as the command to avoid conception during certain times of the month, and so forth.
But more important is the second question: why does He allow the ignorance or interference by man to disturb His perfection in creation? This can be answered in several ways. Firstly, a constant intervention by God would negate the giving of free will to humankind and the need for them to learn the consequences of their acts that harm them. Secondly, the perfection being referred to by God may be of the soul and not the physical body. And thirdly, a disability may be seen as negative in our world of absoluteness, but in God’s world of relativity there is no duality of perfect and imperfect. A physical disability is neither good nor bad, just as wealth or poverty, abundance or lack, health or sickness, blessings or misfortunes, are all neither good nor bad in themselves. The goodness of all things is measured in how much it can be an opportunity for souls to realise their true potential and their ability to know their Creator; and the evil of any thing or situation is measured in how much it distracts and removes one from God.
It is also worth noting that instead of interfering in man’s actions and violating his free will, God is often seen to turn that which is seen as a misfortune into an opportunity for good for the one affected and for those around them. This good, may, for example, be the opportunity to learn the true meaning of selfless love and kindness; or it may simply encourage spiritual growth through a realisation and hopefully the removal of subtle forms of hate, discrimination, jealously, insincerity, or even cruelty within our hearts.
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- From Imam al-Bāqir (a), from the Apostle of God (s), who said to Imam Ali (a): ‘Say: what is the first blessing that Allah blessed you with?’ ‘He created me,’ replied Ali (a), ‘when I was a thing unmentioned.’ ‘True,’ replied the Apostle of God (s) … until he asked: ‘And what is the third [blessing]?’ He [Ali] replied: ‘He brought me forth, praise be to Him, in the best of forms, and composed me with a balanced, upright nature.’ ‘True,’ replied the Apostle of God (s).
- It is reported that the Prophet said to Abū Ribāḥ al-Lakhmī (when his wife delivered a baby): ‘What was born to you?’ ‘Apostle of Allah, what could possibly be born to me besides a boy or a girl!’ he replied. He [the Prophet] then asked: ‘Whom, then, does it resemble?’ ‘Apostle of Allah,’ he retorted again, ‘Whom can it possibly resemble besides its father or its mother?!’ So the Prophet (s) said: ‘Desist. Do not say so. When conception takes place, God presents the [new child’s] entire lineage between it and Adam [and therefore it could resemble anyone between them]. Have you not recited this verse in the book of Allah, And composed you in any form that He wished?’
[1] Razi, 31/75.
[2] Razi, 31/76.
[3] Amali.T, 2/106.
[4] Tabari, 30/56; Ibn Kathir, 8/340; Tabrisi, 5/449, from Imam al-Riḍā (a).