يَخرُجُ مِن بَينِ الصُّلبِ وَالتَّرائِبِ
Which issues from between the loins and the breast-bones.
EXEGESIS
Ṣulb literally means hardness and refers to one’s back. Crucifixion is called ṣalb as it involved fastening a person’s back to wood. It is also used to refer to biological progeny (as opposed to adopted sons or daughters): Forbidden to you are your mothers, your daughters, and your sisters … and the wives of your sons who are from your own loins (aṣlābikum) (4:23). A person’s biological son, for example, would be called walad ṣulbī.
Tarāʾib (sing. tarībah) possibly refers to the bones above the chest of a woman, where, for example, a necklace might rest (most likely the clavicles); it has also been said to refer to the front of a person, or his limbs and eyes, or his ribcage, or the totality of his chest bones, or the bones lower than his back. In other words, combining these various meanings, tarāʾib would refer to the bones that surround or encase something.
On its surface, the verse seems to describe the location from which the seminal fluid emanates within the human body, and this seems to have been the prevalent understanding of the earliest exegetes, namely that the reproductive fluids of a man are produced in his back, and the reproductive fluids of the woman are produced in her chest. However, many exegetes – especially later ones – are divided over the exact meaning of ṣulb and tarāʾib in this verse. What is most likely is that tarāʾib here refers to the pelvic bones. See the Exposition for a more detailed discussion.
EXPOSITION
Due to a lack of knowledge about the human reproductive system concerning where exactly seminal fluids were produced and how they worked, as well as the ambiguity of what ṣulb and tarāʾib are exactly referring to in the verse, the exegetes are divided over the meaning of the verse. Many of the narrations and opinions referred to with regards to this verse are problematic in view of our modern understanding of the human reproductive system. For a more detailed discussion on these various opinions and how we have reached our conclusion, see the Review of Tafsīr Literature.
The summary of the matter is that the semen of a man is composed from an admixture of different fluids that are produced in various parts of his body. All these are located around his pelvic region. The word tarāʾib is a general term that refers most likely to encasing or encircling bones, and due to the context of the verse should here be referring to the pelvic bones. Also, as the verse is addressing the matter of seminal fluid issuing out, there is reference to the location in the body that is responsible for this action, namely nerves located in the lower part of the spine, which send the signals that cause the semen to be issued forth during stimulation. Based on this, the verse could be translated as: Which issues from between the back and the pelvic bones.
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- Sallām ibn Mustanīr says: ‘I asked Abū Jaʿfar [Imam al-Bāqir] (a) about the word of God, mighty and glorified be He: partly formed and partly unformed [22:5]. He said: “Partly formed is the primordial progeny (dharr) which God created in the back (ṣulb) of Adam (a). He took the covenant from them and then directed them (ajrāhum) to the backs (aṣlāb) of men and wombs of women.”’
Note: Even though this hadith has no direct bearing on the verse, it is worth mentioning as it highlights how ṣulb was commonly understood to be the source of progeny, both literally and figuratively.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
By far the biggest disagreement amongst early exegetes regarding the verse was about the meaning of the word tarāʾib. In addition to what has already been mentioned, many other variants have been reported from the earliest generations of Muslim exegetes for the meaning of tarāʾib, not limited to the following:
- From ʿIkramah, that it means the sternum.
- From Ibn Abbas, that it means the ‘extremities (aṭrāf) of a man, his arms, legs, and eyes’; and from al-Ḍaḥḥāk, that it is the arms and legs.
- From Qatādah, that it means the neck or gullet (naḥr).
- Thaʿlabī reports from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr that it is the bones lower than the back (ṣulb).
- Ṭabarī reports from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, Abū ʿIyāḍ, and Ibn Zayd that it refers to the chest (ṣadr), probably intending the ribs, which is what Qurṭubī reports from him.
- From Mujāhid, that it means what is between the shoulders and chest, or in another report, whatever is lower than the clavicles (tarāqī), again perhaps intending the ribs.
- Muʿammar ibn Abī Ḥabībah asserts that it refers to the ‘essential fluids of the heart’ which contribute to the creation of a child.
- Jawharī asserts that ‘it is the bones of the chest (ṣadr) that are between the clavicle (tarquwah) and a man’s chest (thanduʾah)’.
Ṭabrisī and Qurṭubī list several opinions and then argue that ‘it is famous in the speech of the Arabs that it is the bones of the chest (ṣadr) and neck (naḥr)’. Ṭabarī also lists dozens of different reports and then concludes that it is ‘the place where the necklace is placed on a woman, where it is positioned on her chest, because this is what is famous in the speech of the Arabs’. However, with the amount of various opinions listed about the meaning of tarāʾib, it seems dubious that this specific meaning was as well-known to the early community as Ṭabarī or Ṭabrisī present it to be.
Some exegetes, such as Ṭūsī, have completely avoided giving an opinion on the meaning of the verse. Ṭūsī only relates with the dismissive qīla (it is said) that the meaning of the verse is said to be: ‘That the reproductive fluid (nuṭfah) of the man issues from his back, and the reproductive fluid of the woman issues from her chest, and when the fluid of the man overcomes, the child will come out resembling the relatives of the father, and when the fluid of the woman overcomes, the child will come out resembling the relatives of the mother.’ Ṭūsī himself does not seem to take this opinion seriously. He does not, however, give an opinion of his own. Ṭabarī, similarly, lists the different opinions and in the end mentions that the correct meaning of tarāʾib is the chest bones of the woman, however he does not elaborate at all on what the verse could then mean.
In any case, the opinions of the classical exegetes regarding this verse are divided, although the most common opinion by far is that ṣulb refers to the back of a man, and tarāʾib to the chest of a woman, and that the semen (nuṭfah) of a man is produced in his back, and the reproductive liquid of a woman (nuṭfah) is produced in her chest; meaning, that a human is made from an admixture of the fluids of the father and mother, which originate in those parts of their bodies respectively.
This scientifically problematic idea has persisted into even modern times with exegetes such as Mughniyyah (d. 1979), Ḥusaynī-Hamadānī (d. 1996), and Shīrāzī (d. 2001) suggesting this to be the case. Qutb (d. 1966) forwards this same notion and then follows it by claiming that this was a secret of human development spoken of in the Quran, but only recently discovered by science. It is not clear what scientific claims he is referencing. The same claim as Qutb is made by Ṭanṭāwī (d. 2010), and Jazāʾirī (d. 2018).
Despite these claims, scientific evidence is clear that the key components of fertilisation are produced entirely elsewhere, namely sperm cells that are produced in the testes, and ovum produced in the ovaries. Researchers as early as the 1660s and 1670s had discovered that a human being is created from sperm cells and ovum.
Due to this, some contemporary exegetes have attempted to harmonise their understanding of the verse with modern science. Marāghī says he consulted with a chief physician of his time who responded in a lengthy letter on the matter, the summary of which is that he suggests in the early foetal stages during the sixth and seventh week the developing testes and ovaries are located between the spine (ṣulb) and ribs (tarāʾib). He further points out that both the ovum and the sperm cells are carried in fluids that flow in (and out of) the human body, thus it is correct to say that a person is created from effusing liquid. This interpretation has been criticised by Makārim Shīrāzī though, since the verses speak of a person being created from an effusing liquid that issues from between the ṣulb and tarāʾib. Even if at the foetal stage the testes and ovaries are located between these, it is certainly not the case at the time of conception when the liquids are effusing.
Makārim Shīrāzī also mentions an unsourced opinion, arguing that the referent of the verb issues is man, suggesting that the ṣulb and tarāʾib mean the back and front, but of a woman rather than a man. In this sense it is the human being that is born and issues out from the womb of the woman that is within her. Makārim Shīrāzī does not adopt this view, but rather argues that the effusing liquid being talked about here is clearly the seminal fluid of the man, and as such the ṣulb and tarāʾib must both refer to the man. Here they would mean the front and back of the man, thus what is between them, means his insides. Seeing as seminal fluid comprises of various components produced in different parts of the human body, it would be correct to say it issues from inside the man. Nevertheless, Makārim Shīrāzī finishes with the more careful statement that the scientific implications of this verse may still be a mystery to us.
Another suggested interpretation is that ṣulb and tarāʾib refer to the front and back of a man, as tarāʾib has been suggested to mean ‘the front of a person’. This would mean that what is between them is his insides. Hence, the effusing liquid would issue from within man and the verse could be translated as: Which issues from between the back and the front.
It could also be proposed that ṣulb is the male and tarāʾib is the female, because these two qualities are outstanding characteristics of the male and female and thus symbolic of the masculine and feminine qualities, respectively. Linguistically and traditionally, ṣulb is linked to the meaning of ṣilābah or callousness, which would have been considered to be more manifest in males, and tarāʾib to the meaning of softness, which in turn was viewed as being more prevalently manifest in women.
The meaning of the verse would hence be: we are created from the mix of material from man and woman. The verb issues (yakhruju) would hence refer to man in verse 5 rather than fluid in verse 6. Based on this, the verse should be translated as: He [man] issues from between the male and the female. The verse would then mean that a human being is created from male and female, as explicated in Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt: O mankind! Indeed We created you from a male and a female (49:13).
There are however other points of contention to also consider. The general opinion seems to have been that ṣulb refers to the back of the man and tarāʾib refers to the chest of a woman, however some exegetes – such as what has been attributed to Hasan al-Baṣrī – have suggested that both ṣulb and tarāʾib refer to both man and woman. Others – such as what has been attributed to Qatādah – have argued that both terms refer to the man.
The contemporary exegete Faḍl-Allāh also adopts a position comparable to this (arguing that both ṣulb and tarāʾib refer to the man). He does not however give any evidence as to how this makes scientific sense, arguing simply that scientific evidence is only speculative and does not give us certainty, and that perhaps one day science will discover the meaning of this verse.
Furthermore, some have put forward that what is between the ṣulb and tarāʾib, is what is between the front and back of a human being; in other words, his whole body. This is because when semen issues forth it is usually accompanied by a tensing of the whole human body, and thus, they conclude, the verse is speaking of the whole body. This seems to be based on the notion prevalent in the Middle Ages regarding the origin of reproductive fluids in the human body. Qurṭubī writes in the seventh century ah: ‘We know that the reproductive fluid (nuṭfah) is from all the parts of the body. This is why man greatly resembles his parents. It is also the wisdom behind washing all of the body after emission of semen. Similarly, one who copulates a lot will find that his back and his ṣulb pains him, and this is not due to any other reason except that his ṣulb has become emptied of the fluid that it held.’ Qurṭubī also argues in his exegesis of verse 3:6 that there is a narration according to which ‘God creates the bones and cartilage of a baby from the reproductive fluid of a man and its fat and meat from the reproductive fluid of a woman’.
In a similar vein, Rāzī argues that even though the reproductive fluid is produced in the whole body, the brain is the biggest contributor to that and since the brain has nerves that extend to the back and the top part of the chest, these have been mentioned in the verse.
Mullā Ṣadrā also mentions that the reason for the recommendation of placing one’s hand on a woman’s breasts before intercourse is to get the reproductive and sexual fluids moving from that location.
These ideas about the human reproductive system and its fluids seem to originate from classical Greek philosophers. We mentioned in the discussion on the previous verse some opinions and narrations about the role of the male and female sexual fluids in reproduction and the various notions that seem to have been dominant at the time. As discussed there, the prevalent notion seems to have been that female reproductive fluid was like that of the man, except it was of a different colour and texture, and that the roles they played in the formation of the foetus varied. For example, Thaʿlabī, in his commentary on the previous verse about effusing fluid, says: ‘It is the reproductive fluid (manī) of a man and woman when they join together in the womb and mix, thus they are considered fluid in the singular.’ It was thought that these two fluids mixed together, and from that new, combined fluid a foetus would be formed.
We mention all of this so that we may note that the understanding of most early exegetes regarding the verse in question suffered heavily from confirmation bias. Due to the ambiguous meaning of the word tarāʾib – which afforded a variety of different meanings – the exegetes invariably understood it to mean the breast-bones of a woman, because to them it confirmed the presupposition they had. This is while there is no indication in the verse that tarāʾib is referring to the woman, nor is there any indication in the previous verse that the effusing fluid should be that of both man and woman. Indeed, as we saw with Thaʿlabī, many classical exegetes had to struggle with the usage of the singular fluid, since to them it was obvious that the female fluid would also effuse into the womb where it would then mix with the male’s, thus to them there had to be two effusing fluid(s) being spoken of in the Quran.
Similarly, most were sure that male semen was produced in the back. Hence, they assumed that the verb issues (yakhruju) must be referring to the origin where semen was produced.
These mistaken understandings were then passed on to later exegetes, who simply repeated what had been mentioned without questioning it.
There are two points to consider at this stage. Firstly, in Sūrat al-Qiyāmah there is mention of the clavicles (collar bone): No indeed! When the soul reaches up to the collar bones (75:26), and the word used there is tarāqī (the plural of tarquwah), not tarāʾib. Based on this, it seems there already existed a specific term for the clavicles and therefore tarāʾib should either mean something else, or as we shall soon argue, a more general term that also included the meaning of tarāqī.
Secondly, tarāʾib is used in the plural form, whereas the colloquial collar bones are comprised of the left and right clavicle. If the verse is referring to the clavicles of a woman then it seems correct to use the dual form tarībatayn rather than the plural tarāʾib. Now it could be argued that the plural tarāʾib is used because the verse speaks of all women (like the plural used in 75:26, referring to all people), however it would then be incorrect to use the singular ṣulb for all men, instead of the plural aṣlāb.
The question then remains: what does tarāʾib mean? A common feature of the various opinions mentioned for tarāʾib seems to be that they are bones that encircle something or encase it. The clavicles encircle the neck, whilst the ribcage encircles the chest. This meaning could be a general one, and used for any such bones, which may be the cause for the disagreement and confusion amongst early exegetes. In the context of the verse, the encircling bones should be referring to the bones around the pelvic region of the man, from where the effusing liquid originates. It is possible that the opinion mentioned earlier, which is reported by Thaʿlabī from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr – that tarāʾib are the bones lower than the back (ṣulb) – is also referring to the pelvic bones.
If we accept this it would still leave the question of what is meant by ṣulb, and how that relates to the effusing fluid; to understand this a brief look at the male reproductive system is required.
As mentioned earlier, sperm cells are produced in the testes, however they are only a small portion (about, or less than, one-tenth) of the seminal fluid, or semen. During ejaculation the sperm cells pass through ejaculatory ducts and mix with other fluids. These other fluids include the fluid produced in the seminal vesicles (which comprises about seven-tenths of semen, this fluid helps suppress a woman’s immune response from killing the foreign sperm cells), fluid produced in the prostate gland (which comprises about two to three-tenths of semen, this fluid helps protect and nourish the sperm cells), and a small amount of fluid from the bulbourethral gland (which produces the fluid called Cowper’s fluid, known in classical Islamic jurisprudence as madhī, and this fluid helps the sperm cells swim through the woman’s cervix). These fluids are produced in various places of the male anatomy, all located in the pelvic region.
We may note at this stage that perhaps because there is no one, specific place for producing seminal fluid that the general term tarāʾib (which may mean pelvic bones in this context) has been employed.
Prior to ejaculation, stimulation sends nerve signals via the internal pudendal nerves to the upper lumbar plexus (spine). These nerve signals are what cause contraction (via the hypograstic nerves, located in the abdominal and pelvic region) that results in the seminal fluid being expelled by force (dafq) as mentioned in verse 6. Therefore, the reason why ṣulb (back) has been mentioned may not be due to the fact that it produces the semen – as most classical exegetes thought – but rather because it plays a key role in the expulsive (dafq or effusing) motion of the semen mentioned in the previous verse.
Based on this, the verse could be translated as: Which issues from between the back and the pelvic bones.
Finally, we may note that the diversity of interpretations is revealing of the fact that the connection between the effusing liquid and ṣulb and tarāʾib is not immediately obvious, and as such has resulted in much debate. Without a doubt this adds to the theme of mystery in the surah, and in a most masterful way inevitably leads the careful reader to perform exactly what the previous verse commanded him to do: So let man consider from what he was created (verse 5). It is itself an amazing feat of the Quran, that it managed to get generations of Muslims to ponder and think about how they were created.
[1] Raghib, p. 489.
[2] Jawhari, 1/91.
[3] Muhit, 10/451.
[4] Nemuneh, 26/365.
[5] Thalabi, 10/179.
[6] Kafi, 6/12.
[7] Thalabi, 10/179.
[8] Tabari, 30/92.
[9] Thalabi, 10/179.
[10] Thalabi, 10/179.
[11] Tabari, 30/92.
[12] Qurtubi, 10/451.
[13] Tabari, 30/92.
[14] Tabari, 30/92-93; Muhit, 10/451.
[15] Jawhari, 1/91. Thunduʾah refers to the breasts of a man, where the breasts of a woman would be; see Qurtubi, 20/6.
[16] Tabrisi, 10/715; Qurtubi, 20/5.
[17] Tabari, 30/92.
[18] Tibyan, 10/325.
[19] Tabari, 30/93.
[20] Tibyan, 10/325.
[21] Kashif, 7/549.
[22] Ḥusaynī-Hamadānī, Anwār-e Darakhshān, 18/85.
[23] Shīrāzī, Tabyīn al-Qurʾān, p. 613.
[24] Qutb, 6/3878.
[25] Tantawi, 15/355.
[26] Jazāʾirī, Aysar al-Tafāsīr, 5/553-554.
[27] Matthew Cobb, ‘An Amazing 10 Years: The Discovery of Egg and Sperm in the 17th Century’, in Reproduction in Domestic Animals, Suppl. 4 (2012), 2-6.
[28] Maraghi, 30/113-115.
[29] Nemuneh, 26/366-367.
[30] Nemuneh, 26/365.
[31] Nemuneh, 26/367-368.
[32] Nemuneh, 26/368.
[33] Nemuneh, 26/365.
[34] Qummi, 2/415.
[35] Something similar to this is mentioned in Nemuneh, 26/365.
[36] Qurtubi, 20/7; Muhit, 10/451; see also Razi, 31/120, who relates this opinion and claims that the proponents of it base it on the fact that the reproductive fluids of a man only originate in his ṣulb, and the reproductive fluids of a woman only originate in her tarāʾib, thus there is no reproductive fluid that originates from both.
[37] Tabari, 30/92.
[38] Fadlallah, 24/181-184.
[39] Nemuneh, 36/367.
[40] Qurtubi, 20/7.
[41] Qurtubi, 4/7.
[42] Razi, 31/120.
[43] Sadra, 7/338.
[44] Sadra, 7/336-337; see also Matthew Cobb, ‘An Amazing 10 Years: The Discovery of Egg and Sperm in the 17th Century’, in Reproduction in Domestic Animals, Suppl. 4 (2012), 2-6; and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epigenesis/
[45] Thalabi, 10/451.
[46] See for example Razi, 31/120; Alusi, 15/308; Qurtubi, 20/4; Zamakhshari, 4/735; Baghawi, 5/239; Muhit, 10/451; Sadra, 7/335.
[47] Perhaps similarly the ‘extremities of a man’, the arms and legs, as mentioned from Ibn Abbas, are in a fashion located around the torso and thus are surrounding the body, hence why they can also be considered tarāʾib.