Allah created Adam with His two hands

Allah created Adam with His two hands…but what does that mean?

Question
Allah tells us in the Qur'an that He created Adam with "His two hands". What are we supposed to understand from this? How is this different from His creation of other things?

Answered by
Sheikh Ahmad Tâhâ Rayyân, president of the Islamic Law Encyclopedia Council, Cairo

“(Allah) said: ‘O Iblis! What prevents you from prostrating yourself to one whom I have created with both my hands? Are you haughty? Or art you one of the exalted?’ ” [Sûrah Sâd: 75]

We understand from this verse the extreme care and concern that Allah shows for this particular creation of His. Allah honors Adam – and in turn all of humanity – in this way.

Allah’s creations come about simply because He says “Be” and they are.

Allah says: “To Him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the Earth: When He decrees a matter, He says to it: ‘Be!’ and it is.” [Sûrah al-Baqarah: 117]

Allah says: “And Our word unto a thing, when We intend it, is only that We say unto it: ‘Be!’ and it is.” [Sûrah al-Nahl: 40]

The fact that Allah singles out Adam saying that He created this creature with His own two hands shows how much Allah has honored Adam.

As for the nature of the creative process being referred to in the verse, this is something beyond our human knowledge that we cannot begin to speculate about. It is a matter of the Unseen. We must defer knowledge of this matter to Allah.