Sura 32 The Prostration (Al-Sajdah)

In the name of God, the Almighty, the Merciful.

[32:1] A. L. M.

[32:2] The revelation of the Book, in which there is no doubt, is from the Lord of the Worlds.

[32:3] Or do they say, "He fabricated it"? Rather, it is the truth from your Lord so that you would warn a people to whom no warner has come before you, so that they may be guided.

[32:4] God is the One who created the heavens and the earth and what is between them in six days, then He settled on the Throne. You have none besides Him as an ally or an intercessor. Will you not be reminded?

[32:5] He handles the affair from heaven to earth, then it ascends to Him in a day the measure of which is one thousand years of your count.

[32:6] Such is the Knower of the unseen and the seen, the Dignified, the Merciful.

[32:7] The One who perfected everything He created, and He initiated the creation of the human being from clay.

[32:8] Then He produced his seed from an extract of a despised fluid.

Footnote 32:8 – The ejected semen of a healthy adult male contains an average of 300 million sperm. The Quran confirms that only one of these millions is 'extracted' from the semen to fertilise the female ovum. This information was discovered many centuries after the revelation of the Quran. Human sperm was not discovered until 1677, by Antione Philips van Leeuwenhoek. As for the discovery that only one sperm fertilizes the ovum, it was discovered by Wilhelm August Oscar Hertwig who was born in 1849.

[32:9] Then He fashioned him and blew into him from His Ruh. And He devised for you the hearing, the sight and the hearts; little do you give thanks!

[32:10] They said, "When we have disappeared into the earth, will we then be subject to a new creation?" In fact, they disbelieve in the meeting with their Lord.

[32:11] Say, "The angel of death put in charge of you will take you back, then to your Lord you shall be returned."

[32:12] If only you could see the criminals when they hang down their heads before their Lord: "Our Lord, we have seen, and we have heard, so send us back and we will do good deeds. We have now attained certainty."

[32:13] Had We willed, We could have granted every self its guidance, but the Word has been rightly issued by Me that I will fill Hell with jinn and humans, all together.

Footnote 32:13 – If it were up to God's wish, He would have wanted everyone to be a guided believer. However, since God decreed that there shall be 'no compulsion in religion' (2:256), it follows that for belief in God to merit any credit, it must be the personal choice of the human being and not something imposed on him. Sadly, the largest majority of people will reject the guidance sent by God and choose disbelief or idol worship (6:116, 12:103, 12:106), thereby deserving to end up in Hell. The words that follow in verse 14 confirm that admittance to Hell is the consequence of what people used to do, rather than it being an unfair sentence from God.