A Handful of Dirt From All of the Earth

Allah (swt) created Ādam. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: inna Allāha taʿālā khalaqa Ādama min qabḍatin qabaḍahā min jamīʿi al-arḍ, fa-jāʾa banū Ādama ʿalā qadri al-arḍ, jāʾa minhumu al-aḥmaru wa-l-abyaḍu wa-l-aswadu wa bayna dhālik, wa-l-sahlu wa-l-ḥaznu wa-l-khabīthu wa-l-ṭayyibu wa bayna dhālik. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: Allah created Ādam from a handful of dirt picked from all of earth, all of the earth. So the children of Ādam became red, white and black, and everything in between; and they became soft and tough, bad and good, and everything in between.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: Allah (swt) created Ādam from a handful of dirt. This dirt was taken from different parts of the earth. So there was black soil, there was white soil, there was yellow soil — different colours. And then some of the soil was taken from mountains, and some of it was taken from valleys, and it was mixed together.

So the son of Ādam, the descendants of Ādam, came out in different colours, because the dirt they were created from is from different colours. And they came out with different qualities, because some of this dirt was taken from mountains and some of it was valleys; some of it was from fertile land, and some of it was from infertile land. So you have some of them are righteous, and some of them are evil; some of them are easy to deal with, and some of them are tough. They came out according to the material they were created from.

What was Ādam created from? Turāb: dirt. But that was not the only name that was given to the material we were created from. We find in the Qur'an that the components of our body were described with different terms. Allah (swt) has called it turāb, which means dirt. Allah has called it ṭīn, which means clay; ṭīn lāzib, sticky clay; ṣalṣāl, sounding clay; ḥamaʾin masnūn, black smooth mud. Why were these different terms used to refer to the material we were created from? Turāb, ṭīn, ṣalṣāl, ḥamaʾin masnūn, ṭīn lāzib: dirt, mud, clay, sounding clay, black smooth mud.