Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 54 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:54

وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ مِنَ ٱلْمَآءِ بَشَرًا فَجَعَلَهُۥ نَسَبًا وَصِهْرًا ۗ وَكَانَ رَبُّكَ قَدِيرًا

“And it is He who has created from water [i.e., semen] a human being and made him [a relative by] lineage and marriage. And ever is your Lord competent [concerning creation].”

Saheeh International

Essence

From a little water He made a human being, then wove that person into ties of blood and marriage; your Lord is ever able.

A reflection

Do you know who my father is?

Two cars want the same parking space outside a busy shop. One driver gets out, red in the face. 'Do you know who my father is?' he shouts. The other driver, a young delivery courier, genuinely does not.

Human beings have always reached for lineage when they want to feel large. The name, the family, the line of grandfathers. This ayah takes that instinct and traces it back to its source.

He created a human being from water. One commentator spells out what that means. Allah created the human being from a weak drop, then shaped and proportioned him, made him complete, male or female as He wills. Then He made him a person of lineage and of marriage ties. And all of that, he notes, from a despised fluid. That is why the ayah closes: and your Lord is ever able.

So the long line of fathers we boast about began, in every single case, as a drop no one would look at twice. The same is true of the courier, and of the man shouting at him.

The Prophet ﷺ made this explicit. Allah has removed from you the arrogance of the days of ignorance and its boasting of fathers, he said. There is only the mindful believer and the wretched sinner. People are the children of Adam, and Adam was from dust. Al-Tirmidhi recorded it and called it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.

This is the majesty lens turned on the ego. Pride in lineage is borrowed pride. We take credit for a chain we did not forge, made from water we did not supply, by a power that was never ours.

The humble response is not to despise our families. It is to thank the One who made them from almost nothing, and to stop using them as a ladder above other people.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.