in His words:

“Do they not see that Allah, who created the heavens and the earth and was not wearied by creating them, is able to give life to the dead?”

Those people did not dispute that Allah creates people like them in this world. This is an observable reality: He creates generation after generation, bringing children into being from their parents. This is the first creation, which they already knew, and He cited it as evidence to them of His power to bring about the final creation, as He says:

“You already know the first creation, so why do you not take heed?”

And He says:

“He puts forward an example for Us, forgetting his own creation. He says, ‘Who will give life to bones when they have crumbled?’”

“Say, ‘The One who created them the first time will give them life. He has full knowledge of every creation.’”

And He says:

“O people, if you are in doubt about the resurrection, then We created you from dust, then from a drop of fluid, then from a clinging clot, then from a lump of flesh, formed and unformed, to make things clear to you.”

For this reason, He says:

“from replacing you with others like you and bringing you into being in forms you do not know.”

Al-Hasan ibn al-Fadl al-Bajalī said: My understanding of this verse—“and bringing you into being in forms you do not know,” followed by “You already know the first creation”—is that it means: “I shall create you for resurrection after death in a way unknown to you, however I will.” You know how the first creation took place in your mothers’ wombs, whereas the second will not be like that.

It is known that, in the first creation, the human being was a drop of fluid, then a clinging clot, then a formed lump of flesh, after which the soul is breathed into him. That drop comes from the seminal fluid of the man and the woman. He nourishes him with menstrual blood, through which Allah causes the fetus to grow within three layers of darkness: the darkness of the placenta and the darkness of