So they began to cast doubts upon the Qur’an, saying, “This is a tangle of words, each part undoing the other.”¹
We answer: This speaks of the first stage of Adam’s creation. Allah initially fashioned him from dust, then from clay that was red, black, and white, and from both wholesome and saline earth. In the same way his descendants are virtuous and vile, black, red, and white.² Next, that dust was moistened until it became clay; this is His statement,
“from clay,”
and when the clay adhered to itself it became sticky clay—tacky and cohesive. Then He said,
“from an extract of clay” (al-Muʾminūn 23:12),
that is, like clay which, when squeezed, seeps out between the fingers. It then gave off an odor and turned into dark, smooth mud, and He created him from that mud. When it dried, it became dried clay like pottery, meaning it produced a ringing sound like that of pottery—a resonant hum like the sound of fired clay.
(1) Shaykh al-Shanqiti, may Allah have mercy on him, comments on the verse: “We indeed created man from salsal, from hama masnun” (al-Hijr 15:26). The plain sense is that Adam was fashioned from salsal, i.e. dry clay. Other verses appear to speak differently, such as “from tin lazib (sticky clay)” (al-Saffat 37:11) and “like Adam; He created him from turab (dust)” (Al ‘Imran 3:59). The reconciliation is that the Qur’an is describing successive stages of the same earth: first turab (dry dust); when moistened it became tin lazib (adhesive clay); after fermenting it turned into hama masnun (dark, fetid mud); once it dried it became salsal (sounding clay) like pottery. This is clear, and Allah knows best. See: Dafʿ Iham al-Idtirab, 10/118.
(2) Abu Musa al-Ashʿari reported that the Messenger of Allah said: “Allah, Exalted be He, created Adam from a handful He scooped from all the earth. Consequently, the children of Adam reflect the earth: some are red, some white, some black and those in between; some are gentle, some harsh; some are impure, some good, and those in between.” Reported by Ahmad 4/400, 406; ʿAbd b. Humayd, no. 549; Abu Dawud, no. 4693; and al-Tirmidhi, no. 2955, who declared it hasan sahih. Al-Albani graded it sahih in Sahih al-Jamiʿ, no. 1759, and al-Silsila al-Sahihah, no. 1630.