The Prophets
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[21:30]
ARE, THEN, they who are bent on denying the truth not aware that the heavens and the earth were [once] one single entity, which We then parted asunder? – and [that] We made out of water every living thing? Will they not, then, begin to believe?

---

* v.30 : It is, as a rule, futile to make an explanation of the Qur’ān dependent on “scientific findings” which may appear true today, but may equally well be disproved tomorrow by new findings. Nevertheless, the above unmistakable reference to the unitary origin of the universe – metonymically described in the Qur’ān as “the heavens and the earth” – strikingly anticipates the view of almost all modern astrophysicists that this universe has originated as one entity from one single element, namely, hydrogen, which became subsequently consolidated through gravity and then separated into individual nebulae, galaxies, and solar systems, with further individual parts progressively breaking away to form new entities in the shape of stars, planets, and the latters’ satellites. (Regarding the Qur’anic reference to the phenomenon described by the term “expanding universe,” see 51:47 and the corresponding note 31.)
* The statement that God “made out of water every living thing” expresses most concisely a truth that is nowadays universally accepted by science. It has a threefold meaning: (1) Water – and, specifically, the sea – was the environment within which the prototype of all living matter originated; (2) among all the innumerable – existing or conceivable – liquids, only water has the peculiar properties necessary for the emergence and development of life; and (3) the protoplasm, which is the physical basis of every living cell – whether in plants or in animals – and represents the only form of matter in which the phenomenon of life are manifested, consists overwhelmingly of water and is, thus, utterly dependent on it. Read together with the preceding statement, which alludes to the unitary origin of the physical universe, the emergence of life from and within an equally unitary element points to the existence of a unitary plan underlying all creation and, hence, to the existence and oneness of the Creator. This accent on the oneness of God and the unity of His creation is taken up again in verse 92 below.