“From the earth We created you, and into it We shall return you, and from it We shall bring you out once again.”
Qur’an Surah Taha (20:55)
The more we learn about the composition of the human body, the more thought-provoking this Qur’anic statement becomes.
The elements that make up our bodies are not foreign to the Earth beneath our feet.
Oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, and many others are all part of the human body and are also present and continuously cycled through the Earth system — although in very different proportions and chemical forms.
The calcium and phosphorus that build our bones and teeth, the iron incorporated into the hemoglobin carrying oxygen through our blood, and the phosphorus found in DNA and ATP are atoms that ultimately reach living organisms through the great cycles of matter in nature.
Rocks weather and release elements into soil and water.
Plants absorb them.
They move through the food chain.
Eventually, some of those atoms become part of a living human cell.
Rock → Soil → Plant → Food → Human
And when a human being dies and the body decomposes, its elements gradually return to the Earth’s natural cycles.
Human → Earth
But the Qur’an draws our attention to something even deeper.
It repeatedly presents the revival of dead land as something we can observe in order to contemplate resurrection:
“You see the earth lifeless, but as soon as We send down rain upon it, it begins to stir and swell, producing every type of pleasant plant. That is because Allah alone is the Truth, He alone gives life to the dead…”
Qur’an : Surah Al-Hajj (22:5–6)
The Earth becomes lifeless, then comes alive again.
The human being is formed from material belonging to this earthly system, lives upon the Earth, returns to it at death — and is promised to be brought forth from it once again.
So perhaps the ground beneath our feet is more than simply the place upon which we live.
It is something from which we came,
something to which we return,
and a recurring sign before our eyes inviting us to contemplate resurrection.
“From it We created you,
into it We shall return you,
and from it We shall bring you out once again.”
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