وَمِنْ ءَايَٰتِهِۦٓ أَنْ خَلَقَكُم مِّن تُرَابٍۢ ثُمَّ إِذَآ أَنتُم بَشَرٌۭ تَنتَشِرُونَ
And of His signs is that He created you from dust; then, suddenly you were human beings dispersing [throughout the earth].
Introduction
This is āyah 20 of Sūrat Ar-Room (The Romans), the 84th sūrah in the traditional order of revelation. It was revealed in the Meccan period and sits within Juzʾ 21. Meccan verses tend to address faith, the oneness of God, and the hereafter.
This introduction is a starting point — the community and Bilal will enrich it over time.
Revelation & occasion
- Period
- Meccan
- Order revealed
- 84 of 114
- Surah
- Ar-Room (30)
And of His signs is that He created you of dust, and then you were mortal man, spreading about. O child of Adam! If you want to know the signs and banners of God's Unity and recognize the marks of His Solitariness, open the eye of heedfulness, open up the insight of intellect, roam the world of your own soul, and gaze on the root of your own creation. You were a handful of dust, a dark makeup stuck in the darkness of your own unknowing, bewildered by the darkness of attri- butes. Then the rain of lights began to fall from the heaven of mysteries: “Then He sprinkled them with some of His light.” The dust turned into jasmine and the stone became pearls. The dense makeup became exalted by this subtle link. The dust became pure, the darkness became light. “Yes, it is We who adorn and paint. We adorn whom We will with Our light. We adorn the Garden with Our friends, We adorn Our friends with the heart, and We adorn the heart with Our light. We do this so that if they do not reach the pavilions of Our exaltedness through the carcass of their misery, they will reach Us through the ray of the prosperity of Our majesty's light.” A pir was asked, “What is the mark of that light?” He replied, “Its mark is that with that light the servant recognizes God without finding Him, loves Him without seeing Him, and turns away from his own work and the remembrance of himself toward His work and remembering Him. His ease and settledness are in His street, his secrets and joy with His friends. By day he is in the religion's work, by night in the drunkenness of certainty's tidings. By day he is with the people in good character and by night with the Real in the footing of truthfulness [10:2].”
Tafsir
Hafiz Ibn Kathir
Chains of transmission
Oral — isnād
- ~610–632 CERevelation & memorisation
Received by the Prophet ﷺ and preserved by the ḥuffāẓ (memorisers) among the Companions.
- 1st century AHMutawātir transmissionawaiting curation
Carried by mass-transmission through the generations of qurrāʾ.
- TodayLiving chainsawaiting curation
Continuous ijāzah chains link reciters today back to the Prophet ﷺ.
Verified isnād chains for this āyah will be added by curators.
Written — the manuscript record
- ~650 CEʿUthmānic codicesawaiting curation
The standardised muṣḥaf sent to the great cities (e.g. the Topkapı and Samarqand codices).
- 8th–10th c.Early Ḥijāzī & Kūfic foliosawaiting curation
Surviving leaves in Birmingham, Sanaa, Paris (BnF) and beyond.
- Modern printModern printawaiting curation
The 1924 Cairo edition → today: the standard printed muṣḥaf used worldwide.
A curated chain of manuscript images for this exact āyah — roughly one per century — is coming. Help us source and verify them.
And now — what do you think?
The text, its history and the classical commentary are laid out above. Share your own understanding, ask a question, or reason with others.
Community resources
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