These verses will take us for a look through the inner world of ourselves, and through the steps and stages of our creation. They will teach us how Man the noblest of creatures, has been made out of the dead and worthless clay. This is the superior and amazing power of God, that from the simplest of materials has made the most complex of creatures! Man is created of clay!

      So in this passage the five various stages in the creation of Man has been beautifully summarized, in order to show in a glance, Man's position in this everchanging life; that how the inorganic materials turn to living matter:ِ

      ``Then We made him a semen in a safe and secure (FIRM) place.''

      The first stage in the creation of Man is the conversion of clay to semen, which is the viscid whitish fluid produced in the male reproductive organs, containing the spermatozoon that serves to fertilize the ovum. This is performed with utmost safety and security in father's loins and mother's womb.

      Then the wonderful movements and development of the sperm in the mother's womb has been mentioned in brief and one stage of creation after another, saying that the semen is changed into a clot of thickly congealed blood. The clot is then changed to a lump of flesh among which the bones are made.

      After the above wonderful steps of development, reference is made to another amazing stage of Man's creation, through which a further process takes place; giving the foetus a soul, so that the animal may become a Man. This process is the breathing of God's Spirit into him. From here on, the physical growth of the babe, is parallel to that of his spiritual progress.

      After stating the five stages of creation of Man which will end in clothing the bones with flesh, the word ``creation'', is no more repeated for the next stage of creation:

      ``....After that we began for him another kind of creation.''

      This is the breathing of God's spirit in the developed foetus.

      The Arabic, ``AN, SHAA, NÄ, HO'' that we have translated to, ``We began for him'' means to originate a creation accompanied with teaching and training it too. This is the case with the foetus when it begins to develop physically as well as mentally.

*****

      In fact, the physical body is a means to improve the spirit of God which is breathed in Man. When the spirit is developed enough, it is no more in need of the body and can easily leave it to live alone. Then the spiritless body will decay and die, and the soul or spirit which is the original in Man's existence, will continue living, by opening a new chapter of life in the Intermediate World. (BARZAKH)

      This new world is beyond time and space, in which the soul of Man lives until the solar system has changed enough; and is prepared for the Resurrection and raise up of the deads. Then the soul is granted a body, which is everlasting, and both of them will live together for ever, either in Paradise, or in Hell, so long as God will.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE