Living The Quran
From Issue: 558 [Read full issue]
Pre-Earthly Existence
Al-Araf (The Heights) Sura 7: Verse 172
"Now, behold! Your Lord took from the Children of Adam - from their loins - all the souls that would become their posterity. And He made them bear witness to their own souls - saying to them: Am I not your Lord? They said: Oh yes, indeed! We do so bear witness! This we did in the event that you should say on the Day of Resurrection: Indeed, we were heedless of this truth."
The general meaning of this verse is that God assembled the Children of Adam, all of humanity, in spirit before they came into material existence and took physical shape. God declared His unrivalled Lordship and all people assented in a solemn covenant.
One may ask, how did this take place? And why can I not remember it? Of course, human beings, by nature, remember nothing of very vital periods in their lives - such as conception and birth, early childhood, and so forth. Yet, they know it to have taken place by the account of their parents, for example, and their own later experience. Similarly, the Covenant of Pre-Earthly Human Existence has been reported in God's revealed Books and by His Prophets and has been imprinted on our souls, so that there is an innate or dormant recognition of its truth, which the signs of God in the universe and in His revelations awaken in us.
The objective of the verse is to remind the human being that it will be held accountable by God, who is the Lord and Creator of all people, for the trust of moral choice that it accepted.
Compiled From:
"The Gracious Quran" - Ahmad Zaki Hammad, p. 237