Creation of Humans from Clay: Difference between revisions

{{QualityScore|Lead=1|Structure=3|Content=4|Language=3|References=4}}

[[File:Khnum creation from clay.gif|thumb|right|177px|The ram-headed god Khnum, also known as "The Guardian of the Cataract" or "The Great Potter", was one of the earliest Egyptian deities and was said to have created mankind from clay.]]

==Apologetic Claim==

The Arabic word "''sulala''," translated as "extract" in the verse, means "representative example, ''essence''." As we have seen, the information revealed in the Qur'an 1,400 years ago confirms what modern science tells us-the fact that the same elements are employed in human creation as those found in the soil}}

{{Quote|[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4307-clays-matchmaking-could-have-sparked-life.html Clay's matchmaking could have sparked life]<BR>Philip Cohen, NewScientist, October 23, 2003|Two of the crucial components for the origin of life - genetic material and cell membranes - could have been introduced to one another by a lump of clay, new experiments have shown.  

Notwithstanding this key distinction, is Islam the only religion which postulated the creation of human beings from clay?

Many religions pre-dating (and some post-dating) Islam also carry this 'creation of human beings from clay' story. The earliest are the pre-cursors of the [[Abrahamic Religions|Abrahamic faiths]] - namely the early Mesopotamian religions.  

{{Quote||Aruru (Ninmah, Nintu, Ninhursaga, Belet-ili, Mami)  

-She is the mother goddess and was responsible for the creation of man with the help of Enlil or Enki. She is also called the womb goddess, and midwife of the gods. On Ea's advice, she acted on his direction and mixed clay with the blood of the god Geshtu-e, in order to shape and birth seven men and seven women. These people would bear the workload of the Igigi. She also added to the creation of Gilgamesh, and, at Anu's command, made Enkidu in Anu's image by pinching off a piece of clay, throwing it into the wilderness, and birthing him there. Ea called her to offer her beloved Ninurta as the one who should hunt Anzu. She does so.<ref>[{{Reference archive|1=http://stason.org/TULARC/education-books/assyro-babylonian-mythology/03-The-Older-genealogical-Gods-gods-and-the-heroes-of-the.html|2=2012-12-13}} The Older (genealogical) Gods (gods and the heroes of the Babylonians)] - Assyro-Babylonian Mythology FAQ, Stason.org</ref><ref name="Christopher B. Siren">Christopher B. Siren (1999) based on John C. Gibson's Canaanite Mythology and S. H. Hooke's Middle Eastern Mythology</ref>}}  

{{Quote||(Gibson p. 68) men are considered made of 'clay'.<ref name="Christopher B. Siren"></ref>}}  

{{Quote||According to Samuel Noah Kramer (Tablets of Sumer, Colorado,1956) Nammu and Ninmah, assisted by deities who are the 'good and princely fashioners', mixed clay which was 'over the abyss' and brought man into existence.  

Other faiths that postulate the 'creation of human beings from clay' stories include the ancient Egyptians, some African tribes and the Incas.  

{{Quote||Khnum, the ram-headed god of Elephantine, the potter, fashioned men on his wheel, making use of the clay in his locality as his basic material.<ref>Mythology: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Ed. Richard Cavendish. Silverdale Books. page 57. ISBN 1-85605-794-1</ref>}}  

{{Quote||The Shilluk, who live along the Nile in the Sudan, say that Juok (God) created men out of clay. He traveled north and found some white clay, out of which he fashioned Europeans. The Arabs were made of reddish-brown clay and the Africans from black earth.<ref>Ileana Fernandez - [{{Reference archive|1=http://dickinsg.intrasun.tcnj.edu/diaspora/ileana.html|2=2012-12-13}} African Creation Stories] - The College

{{Quote||The Pangwe of Cameroun say that God first created a lizard out of clay which he placed in a pool to soak. He left it there for seven days, and then called ‘Man, come out’, and a man emerged instead of a lizard.<ref name="Richard Cavendish"></ref>}}  

{{Quote||… the God Viracocha created the earth and the sky and peopled the earth with men. There was no sun and the people walked in darkness. But they disobeyed their Creator and he chose to destroy them, turning some into stone and drowning the rest in a flood which rose above the highest mountains in the world. The only survivors were a man and a woman who remained in a box and who, when the water subsided were carried by the wind to Tihuanaco, the chief abode of the Creator. There he raised up all the people and nations, making figures of clay and painting the clothes each nation was to wear. To each nation he gave a language, songs and the seeds they were to sow. Then he breathed life and soul into the clay and ordered each nation to pass under the earth and emerge in the place he directed.<ref>Mythology: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Ed. Richard Cavendish. Silverdale Books. page 187. ISBN 1-85605-794-1</ref>}}

{{Quote||Prometheus shaped man out of mud, and Athena breathed life into his clay figure.<ref>John M. Hunt - [{{Reference archive|1=http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/scaffold/GG/creationMan.html|2=2012-12-13}} The Creation of Man by Prometheus] - San Diego State University, accessed December 14, 2012</ref>}}

{{Quote||Chinigchinich then formed man, both male and female, out of white clay found upon the borders of a lake.<ref>Alana Jolley - [{{Reference archive|1=http://www.saddleback.edu/faculty/aorrison/holdmystuff/websites/nehweb/juaneno.htm|2=2012-12-13}} Acjachemen Creation Myths] - Saddleback College (National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar), 1997</ref>}}

The ‘creation of humans from clay’ stories are common throughout the world, including places like Australia and the Pacific Islands which were not in contact with Islam or any of the other Abrahamic faiths until recent times.

{{Quote||Thus the Karens of Burma say that God "created man, and of what did he form him? He created man at first from the earth, and finished the work of creation. He created woman, and of what did he form her? He took a rib from the man and created the woman."  

(According to) the Santals of Bengal… Some say ' she (Malin Budhi) made them (humans) of a kind of froth which proceeded from a supernatural being who dwelt at the bottom of the sea, but others say she made them of a stiff clay.<ref name="James George Frazer">Sir James George Frazer - [{{Reference archive|1=http://www.creationism.org/flood/FrazerFolkloreOT_0.htm|2=2012-12-13}} Folk-Lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend & Law] - 1918</ref>}}

{{Quote||Thus the Australian blacks in the neighborhood of Melbourne said that Pund-jel, the Creator, cut three large sheets of bark with his big knife. On one of these he placed some clay and worked it up with his knife into a proper consistence. He then laid a portion of the clay on one of the other pieces of bark and shaped it into a human form ; first he made the feet, then the legs, then the trunk, the arms, and the head. Thus he made a clay man on each of the two pieces of bark; and being well pleased with his handiwork, he danced round them for joy. Next he took stringy bark from the eucalyptus tree, made hair of it, and stuck it on the heads of his clay men. Then he looked at them again, was pleased with his work, and again danced round them for joy. He then lay down on them, blew his breath hard into their mouths, their noses, and their navels ; and presently they stirred, spoke, and rose up as full-grown men.<ref name="James George Frazer"></ref>}}  

{{Quote||The Maoris of New Zealand say that a certain god, variously named Tu, Tiki, and Tane, took red riverside clay, kneaded it with his own blood into a likeness or image of himself, with eyes, legs, arms, and all complete, in fact, an exact copy of the deity ; and having perfected the model, he animated it by breathing into its mouth and nostrils, whereupon the clay effigy at once came to life and sneezed. "Of all these things," said a Maori, in relating the story of man's creation, "the most important is the fact that the clay sneezed, forasmuch as that sign of the power of the gods remains with us even to this day in order that we may be reminded of the great work Tu accomplished on the altar of the Kauhanga-nui, and hence it is that when men sneeze the words of Tu are repeated by those who are present"; for they say, "Sneeze, O spirit of life." 1 So like himself was the man whom the Maori Creator Tiki fashioned that he called him Tiki-ahua, that is, Tiki's likeness.

The Marindineeze, a tribe who occupy the dreary, monotonous treeless flats on the southern coast of Dutch New Guinea, not far from the border of the British territory: They say that one day a crane or stork (dik) was busy picking fish out of the sea. He threw them on the beach, where the clay covered and killed them. So the fish were no longer anything but shapeless lumps of clay. They were cold and warmed themselves at a fire of bamboos. Every time that a little bamboo burst with a pop in the heat, the lumps of clay assumed more and more the shape of human beings.<ref name="James George Frazer"></ref>}}

{{Quote||The Cheremiss of Russia, a Finnish people, tell a story of the creation of man which recalls episodes in the Toradjan and Indian legends of the same event. They say that God moulded man's body of clay and then went up to heaven to fetch the soul, with which to animate it.<ref name="James George Frazer"></ref>}}

{{Quote||…the Eskimo of Point Barrow, in Alaska, tell of a time when there was no man in the land, till a certain spirit named á sê lu, who resided at Point Barrow, made a clay man, set him up on the shore to dry, breathed into him, and gave him life. Other Eskimo of Alaska relate how the Raven made the first woman out of clay, to be a companion to the first man ; he fastened water-grass to the back of the head to be hair, flapped his wings over the clay figure, and it arose, a beautiful young woman. The Acagchemem Indians of California said that a powerful being called Chinigchinich created man out of clay which he found on the banks of a lake ; male and female created he them, and the Indians of the present day are the descendants of the clay man and woman.

The Lengua Indians of Paraguay believe that the Creator, in the shape of a beetle, inhabited a hole in the earth, and that he formed man and woman out of the clay which he threw up from his subterranean abode.<ref name="James George Frazer"></ref>}}

{{Core Science}}

==See Also==

{{Hub4|Creation|Creation}}

{{Hub4|Harun Yahya|Harun Yahya}}