Surah 18. Al-Kahf, Ayah 37

See second half of note [47] on {3: 59}, and note [4] on {23: 12}.

 Created your father, Adam, from dust.

The three stages of man's creation: first dust, or clay, itself created out of nothing and forming the physical basis of his body; then, out of the produce of the earth as incorporated in the parents body, the sperm drop (with the corresponding receptive element), and then when the different elements were mixed in due proportion, and the soul was breathed into him, the fashioned man. Cf. lxxxvii. 2, and xv. 28-29.