Maryam (Mary)

66. “And man says: ‘When I am dead shall I be raised up alive?’”

67. “Does not man remember that We created him before, when he was nothing?”

Occasions of Revelation

According to the attitude of a group of commentators, the first holy verse mentioned in the above has been revealed concerning’Ubay-ibn-i-Khalaf, or Walid-ibn-i-Muqayrah, who had taken a piece of a rotten bone in the hand, crashing it with the hand, they scattered it in the wind so that every particle of it spread in a corner, and they said:

“Look at Muhammad! He thinks that, after dying and decaying our bones, like this bone, Allah will restore us to life again. Never such thing is possible!”

Then, these verses were revealed and gave them a sever answer, an answer which is helpful and instructive for all human beings in all centuries and ages.

Through former holy verses, a considerable discussion was mentioned upon Resurrection, Paradise, and Hell. The verses under discussion refer to the same matter, too.

In the first holy verse, the words of the hostile rejectors are restated as follows:

“And man says: ‘When I am dead shall I be raised up alive?’”

This interrogation, of course, is a positive interrogation with a negative sense, which means: ‘such thing will never be possible’.

Immediately after that, the Qur’an, with the same tone and meaning, answers this question, saying that whether man does not remember this fact that Allah created him before, and he was nothing at all.

The verse says:

“Does not man remember that We created him before, when he was nothing?”

The application of the word ‘man’, here, may point to this meaning that a person, with natural talent and intellect, should not remain silent in front of such a question. He himself ought to answer it by remembering the first creation, otherwise he has not utilized the reality of his own humanness.

These holy verses, similar to many other verses related to Resurrection, emphasize on resurrection of the body. Else, if it were assigned that only spirit to remain and the return of body to new life were not propounded, neither that question would have any room, nor this answer.

Once Imam Sadiq (as) was asked about the meaning of:

“…We created him before, when he was nothing”,

and he answered:

“It means that neither in the stage of predestination nor in the stage of creation he was anything.”

Then he (as) was asked about the meaning of /lamyakun šay’an maŏkura/ (when he was a thing not worth mentioning),¹ and Imam (as) said:

“That is, it was predestinated, but there was not any name of it in the course.”2

Thus, these two verses speak about a couple of stages before the creation of man.

Another tradition narrated from Imam Baqir (as) indicates that upon the commentary of ‘before’, he said:

“There was no word about him either in the book or in the knowledge.”3