Epigraph:

أَيَحْسَبُ الْإِنسَانُ أَن يُتْرَكَ سُدًى

أَلَمْ يَكُ نُطْفَةً مِّن مَّنِيٍّ يُمْنَىٰ

ثُمَّ كَانَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقَ فَسَوَّىٰ

فَجَعَلَ مِنْهُ الزَّوْجَيْنِ الذَّكَرَ وَالْأُنثَىٰ

أَلَيْسَ ذَٰلِكَ بِقَادِرٍ عَلَىٰ أَن يُحْيِيَ الْمَوْتَىٰ

Does man think that he is to be left purposeless? Was he not a drop of fluid emitted forth? Then he became a clinging form, and then Allah shaped and proportioned him, and He made of him a pair, male and female. Has not such a One the power to bring the dead to life? (Al Quran 75:36-40)

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD

Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Commentary on Qur’an 75:36–40

The Verses: From a Drop to a Clinging Form

Surah Al-Qiyāmah (75:36–40) poses a striking question about human origins and destiny. It asks whether man thinks he will be left without purpose, reminding us that every person began as a humble drop of fluid and then “a clinging form” before developing into male or female – and concludes by asking: “Does He who can do this not have the power to bring the dead back to life?” thequran.love. In these verses, Allah highlights two fundamental stages of human creation: the nutfah, a drop of semen, and the ʿalaqah, a clinging entity attached to the womb. Classical Quranic exegesis often translates ʿalaqah as a “clot” or “leech-like” form, reflecting the embryo’s appearance and its attachment to the uterine wall thequran.love. Modern scholars note that the term ʿalaqah very aptly describes the implanted embryo – essentially the developing placenta and embryo clinging within the “safe place” of the womb thequran.love. Thus, the Qur’an is drawing attention to the marvel of the placenta, the organ that physically attaches the embryo to the mother and makes human development possible.

By invoking these stages of life – a drop of sperm and a clinging embryonic form – the Qur’anic passage invites us to reflect on the remarkable journey from a microscopic origin to a fully formed human. The rhetorical question “Has not such a One (who did this) the power to bring the dead to life?” connects the miracle of creation to the promise of resurrection, a logical link that classical and modern commentators alike emphasize thequran.love thequran.love. To fully appreciate this argument, it helps to explore the scientific wonders of the placenta and its evolutionary origin, which highlight the extraordinary ingenuity behind the stages of life described in these verses.

The Placenta – A Marvel of Creation in Mammals

The placenta is an astonishing organ that plays the role of lifeline between mother and offspring. It is unique in being a temporary organ, forming during pregnancy and expelled at birth thequran.love. Despite its impermanent existence, the placenta carries out functions so critical and complex that humans, with all our medical technology, have not been able to artificially replicate it thequran.love. Biologically, the placenta acts simultaneously as the baby’s lungs, digestive system, kidneys, and more thequran.love. It attaches to the uterine wall and connects to the fetus via the umbilical cord, managing an intricate exchange that sustains the fetus for the entirety of gestation.

Consider the placenta’s multitasking feats. It must extract oxygen and nutrients from the mother’s blood and deliver them to the fetus, while ferrying carbon dioxide and waste products back to the mother for disposal thequran.love. It serves as a selective barrier – allowing helpful substances like oxygen, glucose, and antibodies to pass through, but normally preventing any direct mingling of fetal and maternal blood (which would trigger immune rejection) thequran.love. In fact, the placenta orchestrates a kind of immune truce: the fetus carries half of the father’s genes and would ordinarily be foreign tissue to the mother’s body, yet the pregnancy is sustained for nine months without rejection thequran.love. This is possible because the placental interface carefully protects the fetus – for example, the outer placental layer (syncytiotrophoblast) is a fused cell layer that both facilitates nutrient exchange and shields the fetus from attack, preventing the mother’s immune cells from treating the baby as an invader thequran.love thequran.love. The placenta also operates as an endocrine organ, secreting hormones (like human chorionic gonadotropin, estrogens, and progesterone) that regulate the pregnancy and fetal development thequran.love thequran.love. In short, this one organ creates a controlled environment in which a new human can grow – truly earning its description as “the most incredible gatekeeper” between two beings thequran.love.

Some key functions of the placenta can be summarized as follows:

• Gas and Nutrient Exchange: It delivers oxygen and nutrients from mother to fetus and removes carbon dioxide and metabolic wastes from the fetal blood thequran.love thequran.love. For example, glucose, amino acids, and other nutrients pass through to nourish the baby, while fetal CO₂ and urea are transferred back to the mother for elimination.
• Immune Protection: The placenta creates an immune-privileged site, modulating the mother’s immune system to tolerate the semi-foreign fetus thequran.love. Specialized placental cells and signals prevent maternal immune attacks. Notably, if fetal blood cells accidentally enter the mother’s circulation, her immune system would react, so the placental barrier normally ensures mother and baby’s blood do not directly mix thequran.love. The placental layer also blocks many pathogens, helping shield the developing baby thequran.love.
• Endocrine Support: It produces hormones crucial for maintaining pregnancy and supporting fetal growth thequran.love thequran.love. For instance, the placenta generates large quantities of progesterone (to maintain the uterine lining and immune tolerance) and estrogen, as well as hCG (which supports the maternal ovarian hormones early on) and human placental lactogen (which helps adjust the mother’s metabolism for pregnancy). These hormones orchestrate changes in the mother’s body to optimize conditions for the fetus.
• Waste Removal: The placenta transfers the fetus’s waste products back to the mother’s circulation for disposal. Fetal kidneys produce urine that is recycled in amniotic fluid, but ultimately wastes like urea, CO₂, and bilirubin diffuse through the placenta to be excreted by the mother’s organs thequran.love thequran.love.

What makes these feats even more “miraculous” is how finely tuned and indispensable the placenta is. If the mother’s and baby’s blood ever directly mixed, the maternal immune system would treat the fetus as foreign tissue and destroy it within days thequran.love. Yet, thanks to the placental barrier and immune-modulating signals, the baby can dwell inside the mother for months in safety. The Qur’an’s term “a clinging form in a safe place” (Qur’an 23:13 and implied in 75:38) beautifully captures this reality thequran.love. The uterus, with the placenta, is indeed a secure lodging for the fragile embryo. In the Quranic worldview, this is not a trivial detail: it is a sign of deliberate design by “the best of creators” (Qur’an 23:14)thequran.love. Modern science has only deepened our awe for this stage of life – revealing how the placenta contains miles of intertwined capillaries from mother and child, bringing their blood into close proximity without ever mixing thequran.love. Truly, the placenta is a masterpiece of bioengineering, one that inspires reflection on the wisdom inherent in life’s design.

Evolutionary Origins: Accident or Guidance?

The placenta’s existence poses an intriguing scientific mystery: how did such a complex, transient organ evolve? Research indicates that placental mammals (eutherians) evolved around 150–200 million years ago, diverging from egg-laying ancestors thequran.love. In transitioning from egg-laying to live-bearing reproduction, early mammals had to solve a critical problem: nourishing an embryo internally without the protective eggshell that keeps mother’s and offspring’s systems separate thequran.love. The solution that evolved was precisely the placenta – but it required a suite of innovations, chief among them a special cell layer that could invade the mother’s uterine lining to facilitate exchange yet prevent immune rejection. This is where an astonishing twist comes in: a virus helped make the placenta possible thequran.love.

Scientists have discovered that one of the key proteins that forms the barrier between maternal and fetal blood – a protein called syncytin – is derived from an ancient retrovirus integration. The outer layer of the placenta, the syncytiotrophoblast, is a fused sheet of cells that acts like a wall between mother and fetus thequran.love. Syncytin is the protein that causes cells to fuse together to form this layer. Genetic analysis revealed that syncytin “didn’t look like it came from human DNA” at all – it resembled viral proteins, specifically those from retroviruses like HIV thequran.love. Retroviruses are viruses that insert their genetic material into host cells. In a remarkable event tens of millions of years ago, a retroviral gene for an envelope protein (essentially a fusion protein) got incorporated into the genome of our mammalian ancestors and was co-opted for a new role: helping build a placenta thequran.love. In effect, “we got an upgrade,” as one biologist put it – a viral protein that fuses cells was repurposed so that an embryo could fuse its cells into a placental interfacethequran.love. This allowed the developing embryo to attach to the uterus and form that critical syncytium wall, connecting mother and child yet keeping them apart in the right waysthequran.love.

Such a scenario sounds almost too convenient to be true. The odds that a chance viral infection in some ancestral creature would end up precisely conferring the ability to carry a fetus internally are astronomical. Yet this is what evolutionary science suggests happened: “this retroviral element continues to be important for placental development in modern humans”, meaning that all of us carry the genomic legacy of that ancient viral infection thequran.love. The placenta, in other words, was born from what could be seen as a lucky accident – or, as some would argue, from an act of providence.

This brings us to a philosophical perspective on evolution often termed “guided evolution.” While mainstream biology explains innovations like the placenta through random mutations and natural selection, some scientists and philosophers note that certain evolutionary leaps have an uncanny character. The incorporation of a retroviral gene that just happens to solve the immune and structural challenges of internal pregnancy is cited as one such leap. It suggests that the mechanisms driving evolutionary innovation might be more complex than blind chance alone thequran.love. Horizontal gene transfer (like viral genes jumping into animal genomes) can inject entirely new capabilities that would be extremely unlikely to evolve by small mutations incrementally thequran.love. Those who see divine providence in evolution argue that such events hint at a plan – that God guided the process, using natural mechanisms (even viruses) as instruments of His creative will thequran.love.

Of course, whether one interprets this as a fluke or guidance depends on one’s philosophical outlook. A strict materialist might say, “We are just lucky beneficiaries of ancient viral infections,” whereas a theist might respond, “This was meant to be – a part of the grand design.” The author of one commentary wryly noted that he does “not have as much faith as the atheists” do to attribute the exquisite engineering of the placenta entirely to chance thequran.love. In the theistic view, the virus that “upgraded” mammalian reproduction was not a random accident at all, but a tool used by an All-Knowing Creator to enable the emergence of creatures like us thequran.love. After all, the Quran teaches that Allah works through signs in nature (āyāt) – and what could be a more striking sign than the fact that part of our own origin is literally written in viral DNA? Whether one’s perspective is purely scientific or faith-informed, the evolution of the placenta stands as a remarkable story. It illustrates how life’s complexity arose through a series of unlikely events – events which, for believers, point beyond themselves to a guiding purpose.

Divine Purpose and the Power to Resurrect

Given this scientific understanding of our origins, the Quranic verses in Surah 75:36–40 take on even deeper significance. Theologically, these verses have always been an argument about Allah’s power and purpose: the God who creates a human being out of a droplet and a clinging embryo is certainly capable of re-creating that human being after death. Classical scholars like Ibn Kathīr, al-Jalālayn, and many others commented on the sequence of embryonic stages in the Quran not to teach biology per se, but to drive home a point of faith – resurrection is logically assured by the precedent of creation thequran.love thequran.love. As Syed Abul A‘lā Maududi wrote, the “whole act of creation, starting from the emission of a sperm-drop till its development into a perfect man,” is a clear sign of Allah’s wisdom and power – so much so that anyone who reflects on it “cannot refuse to admit that the God Who brings about man in the world also has the power to bring the same man into being once again” thequran.love. In the Qur’an’s own words, “He brings the dead back to life; He has power over everything” thequran.love.

What modern science adds to this theological argument is a new appreciation for just how astonishing that initial creation process really is. The reference to the “clinging form” now evokes the image of the placenta and embryo in the womb – a connection largely unknown to people in the 7th century, but which we now understand in detail. Knowing that the “clinging form” involves the orchestrated work of an organ as complex as the placenta (with all its immune, nutritional, and endocrine functions) amplifies our sense of wonder at the creative power behind it. It is as if the Quran is directing our attention to something that would only be fully appreciated centuries later. The verse asks us to ponder: this “clinging form” – how did it come to be, and Who fashioned it? We have seen that even on a material level, it required an extraordinary confluence of events in Earth’s deep history. The believer can readily see divine intentionality here: what are the odds that a virus would gift us an organ so perfect that even our best scientists and engineers today cannot emulate it? It is precisely this kind of reflection that the Quran encourages: “We mean to make Our power clear to you” as Allah says in Surah 22:5 in the context of embryonic development thequran.love. In other words, studying embryology and evolution is not a threat to faith but a means to deepen it, by marveling at the ingenuity of Allah’s work in nature thequran.love.

Both classical and contemporary Islamic scholars thus converge on the idea that biological development is a proof of God’s power and a promise of the future resurrection thequran.love thequran.love. The Quran itself makes the analogy between the barren earth brought to life with rain and the human being brought to life from the womb – and then says “thus shall you be raised up” (cf. Qur’an 22:5-7) thequran.love. Just as rain awakens dead land, the divine command will one day awaken dead humanity. The stages of embryonic life are signs (āyāt) that foreshadow the stages of afterlife. Modern believers who are scientifically literate can draw even more connections: for example, the embryo’s development is not random at all but follows a program encoded in DNA – an informational blueprint. By analogy, one might imagine that our lives are recorded with the Creator, and resurrection is simply the re-activation of that information (something the Quran hints at when it speaks of books or records of deeds, and of people being created again in a form Allah wills).

In sum, Qur’an 75:36–40 invites us to reflect on where we come from in order to understand where we are going. The humble beginnings of life – a drop of fluid, a clinging form in the uterus – are not just biological trivia; they are keys to answering skepticism about life after death. The more we learn about those beginnings, the more forceful the argument becomes. The placenta, once merely a word (“clot” or “cling”) to early audiences, now stands out as a sign of astonishing wisdom built into creation. As one Quran and science commentator put it, scientific insights into embryology and the placenta “enrich our understanding of both natural biology and Qur’anic symbolism.” The placenta’s wondrous functions, mediating life between mother and child, parallel the Qur’an’s depiction of life’s origin – both pointing to “a designed, purposeful creation capable of renewal beyond death.” thequran.love Indeed, after exploring these verses alongside the marvels of mammalian pregnancy and evolution, we may boldly conclude that the One who brought us forth from a microscopic drop, through a clingy placenta, into conscious life has more than enough power to bring the dead to life thequran.love. The journey from embryology to evolution to resurrection is, in the end, one grand continuum in the Quranic vision – a “Grand Show on Earth” that manifests divine creativity at every stage, and culminates in our return to God. Such reflections fulfill the purpose of verses like 75:36–40: to make us witness that the Creator who gave us life the first time will surely give us life anew.

Sources: The Glorious Quran (75:36–40) thequran.love; insights on placenta biology and evolution from Z. H. Shah, The Quran and Science (2024–2025) thequran.love thequran.love thequran.love thequran.love; classical and modern Quranic exegesis on creation and resurrection thequran.love thequran.love; scientific research on endogenous retroviruses in placental development thequran.love thequran.love.