Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 14 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:14

خَلَقَ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ مِن صَلْصَـٰلٍ كَٱلْفَخَّارِ

“He created man from clay like [that of] pottery.”

Saheeh International

Essence

You were made from clay that rings when tapped, and the word for that pottery is the word for boasting: loud because it is hollow.

A reflection

Made of the stuff that boasts

This ayah describes the material of the human being, and hides a warning inside one word.

He created man from ṣalṣāl, dry clay that rings, like fakhkhār. Fakhkhār is fired clay: jars, pots, earthenware. And its root is the root of fakhr, boasting. One lexicon defines boasting plainly as counting up what is old. A man stands to recite whose son he is, and whose son before that.

Two commentaries notice the link and explain it. One says pottery is named as if it were boasting over the rest of its kind. Dust crumbles; this dust has become a vessel that holds water and does not fall apart. Another says it is named for the sound it makes when tapped, like someone who boasts a great deal.

The lexicons gather other pictures under the same root, and all of them have one shape. A she-camel with a huge udder and little milk. A date that swells large with no stone inside. Size on the outside, air within.

Sit with that, because it is a mirror held up at the moment of our making. The very substance the human was shaped from carries the name of a hollow ring. The ego's favourite sound, 'look what I am', is the sound a jar makes when it is empty.

A sceptic might ask why a Maker would remind His creature of so humble an origin. Not to shame him. He needs nothing from our humility (35:15). It is to save the creature from mistaking the ring for the substance. Pride is noise. What makes a jar valuable is what it holds.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.