But I don't think
this is the way it's intended to be interpreted. The Qur'an also says:
And
We did certainly create man out of clay from an altered black mud. -- Qur'an 15:26
Clearly this does
not mean that man is some kind of clay monster. It seems reasonable to
interpret Qur'an 15:27 in the same
spirit.
We don't view man
being made out of clay as conflicting with the notion of man being made out of
water. They mean different things.
Aisha Khaja: “Dr. Shabir, the question that we have is, the Quran states every living thing was made of water. How is this the case for jinns who were created from fire?
Dr. Shabir Ally: “It’s interesting that the tafsir of the Imam al-Razi actually answers this question.
He says that even though the verse in question—the 21st chapter in the Quran, the 30th verse—says […] “we created from water every living thing”, this excludes the angels and jinns.
I would like to add here that generally in the Quran when the word “kulla”, or everything, is used, it doesn’t necessarily mean everything, literally everything. It means everything within a certain context.
And even in our everyday speech. If you’re leaving the house for a picnic and somebody says, you have everything, or do we have everything?
The answer is usually, yes. But it doesn’t mean everything including the kitchen sink obviously, right? It means everything that we need for the trip.
And it seems also to me that the context of this statement within the verse is the earth and living things on the earth.
So, whereas, you know, jinns and angels existed before the creation of the earth.
The idea in the Quranic verse now is that God created the earth and every living thing on earth is made from water.”
Aisha Khaja: “So, when God references angels and jinns in the Quran it’s always within a separate context or?”
Dr. Shabir Ally: “Well, that would be like prior to the creation of the earth itself because these are the spirit creatures that may have existed before the earth was created.
Angels are definitely very ancient and jinns too seem to have proceeded human beings in the creation plan of God.”
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For yet seven days,
and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and
every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the
earth. (Genesis 7:4)
Notice how yahweh
said "every living subtance" will be wiped off the face of the earth?
Did he wipe of noah and his family and the animals? Why then use "Every
living substance"?
Jesus entered
Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but
since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. (Mark 11:11)
Surely Jesus could
not have looked at everything? don't get carried away with the use of language.
I wonder, if three bakers were
to come visit the author of this list and one were to say: "Bread is made
from flour," the next were to say "bread is made from dough" and
the third were to say: "Bread is made from wheat," if he would
consider this a "contradiction" too?
If two physicists now came along
and one said "bread is made from atoms" and the other said
"bread is made from molecules," would this be an even further
"contradiction"?
The blood of all living creatures is composed of 55
percent plasma, which in turn is composed of more than 90 percent water. As
opposed to 1400 centuries ago when the Qur'an was first revealed by God, today
it is a well known fact that the major "ingredient" in the human body
is water (a matter emphasized ONLY in the Qur'an and not in the Bible). It is
further very well known that mankind is made from "dust" (when you
place his body in the grave and leave it for a number of years, and the water
evaporates, what form does his body revert to? Further, what is
"clay"? Is it not a special form of water and dust? It is equally
obvious that if God created everything then there must have been a time when
everything we see was "nothing," including humans.
However, our current author severely dislikes all
Muslims and is bent on discovering "contradictions." The irony of the
matter is that although he has no formal knowledge of these matters but manages
to brand all of these statements to be "contradictory," in spite of
that, when truly objective and unbiased Christian scholars who are world renown
specialist in this field are presented with the very same verses and many more,
and spend over three years studying them in detail, we find these world renown
Christian scholars so totally amazed at their accuracy in matters which were
only scientifically proven in the last twenty years that they found no recourse
but to admit that it must have come from God and even to go so far as to
suggest the total replacement of current scientific terminology with that used
by God in the Qur'an. But they is saying this with regard to the Muslim Qur'an
and not their own Christian Bible. Who are some of these men? Among them are
Prof. Keith Moore, Prof. E. Marshall Johnson, Prof. Joe Leigh Simpson, Prof.
T.V.N. Persaud , Dr. Maurice Bucaille, and Dr. Tejatet Tejasen to name but a
few.