Al-Nabaʾ 78:8: Created in Pairs

1. The Question This Verse Raises

Q1. What does being created in pairs mean?

The hearers have been asked about “the great news”, the resurrection that the Qurʾān announces. After the earth and mountains, the address turns to the mushrikūn themselves: “We created you.” Their question about being given life again must now be considered alongside the life they already have.^[1]

The word ⁧أَزْوَاجًا⁩ adds a description of that creation. Does it name the paired sexes, or the different kinds of people? The two explanations share a concern with how human life was formed, but each brings out something different.

1. Male and female, and the wider meaning of kinds

An early explanation attributed to Mujāhid gives ⁧اثْنَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ⁩, “two by two.” Muqātil’s own commentary names male and female along with differences of colour and language. The word therefore invites consideration of both pairing and the kinds within human creation.^[2]

The male–female explanation has a direct Qurʾānic parallel:

A ⁧زَوْج⁩, zawj, can be one member of the pair: the husband is his wife’s zawj, and the wife is her husband’s zawj. The plural describes humanity in its paired condition. “In pairs” is therefore an English description of the relationship between the members; it does not make each person two beings.^[3]

The broader meaning follows another established use of the word. Things joined by a shared characteristic form a kind, while associated things may also be opposites. Male and female are themselves two kinds. The Qurʾān uses azwāj of groups receiving worldly provision:

Here the word classifies people; it does not identify spouses. Al-ʿAdawī takes this as evidence for interpreting 78:8 as different kinds of people: tall and short, clever and dull, righteous and otherwise. He gives male and female as the other explanation. Likewise, in the command to gather wrongdoers, their ⁧أَزْوَاج⁩ are those of their kind:

The usage is especially clear where the groups are three:

That passage goes on to distinguish the people of the right, the people of the left and the foremost. The number three makes clear that azwāj can name classes, rather than only groups of two .^[4]

The wider explanation includes differences of sex, colour, language, appearance and stature (al-Ṭabarī, Ibn ʿAṭiyyah).^[5]

Another proposal reported by al-Ālūsī takes “pairs” as the two fluids from which a human being is formed. He rejects it because the verse describes the people created as pairs. It does not describe two ingredients from which each individual was created.^[6]

The distinction is between describing the created people and naming what they were created from. Having identified what “pairs” describes, we can ask why that condition is a blessing.

2. The benefits of pairing and variety

The male–female explanation directs attention to a relationship through which human life continues. Its blessing also includes the life of the partners themselves. The Qurʾān describes that relationship through repose, affection and mercy:

Companionship and offspring are related benefits, but each answers a different need. Partners can find repose and enjoyment together; through their offspring, the human family continues. This is why pairing appears among the gifts recalled to the hearers. Al-Biqāʿī develops the point at the level of the human species: its continuation comes through people of its own kind, without their needing another kind of being to produce their offspring. The same arrangement strengthens their affinity and companionship (Ibn Kathīr, al-Saʿdī, al-Samʿānī, al-Biqāʿī).^[7]

The work of family life continues after a child is born. Cooperation helps the partners meet their needs and care for the next generation. ʿAbduh develops that mutual help and the raising of children; al-Marāghī adds their teaching. The benefit is a life lived together, with responsibility for those who follow.^[8]

The variety explanation reveals another aspect of the same wisdom. Human beings share an origin but are not identical in age, colour, stature or circumstance. Their differences display the Creator’s power. A related explanation connects variation with knowing one’s origin and distinguishing people from one another, while the paired-kind explanation emphasizes that each partner belongs to the same human kind (explanations recorded by al-Māturīdī).^[9]

A broader interpretation includes contrasting conditions and the different tests they bring. A blessing can become more readily recognized through its opposite: the value of youth becomes clearer in old age, and the value of security when fear is experienced. A person in ease is called to shukr, gratitude; a person facing hardship is called to ṣabr, patience. Differing conditions thus teach people to recognize Allah’s gifts and respond to the condition in which they are placed (al-Rāzī, al-Nasafī).^[10]

The widest account relates these contrasts to another verse:

Al-Rāzī develops the explanation through opposites within creation. Heaven and earth, night and day, winter and summer are among the examples attributed to al-Ḥasan in Lisān al-ʿArab and given in al-Samʿānī’s commentary. This account extends the consideration beyond spouses to the contrasted kinds of the created world.^[11]

3. Why creation answers the question of resurrection

The people questioning resurrection already possess the very thing they think cannot be given again: human life. A parallel passage makes them face their first creation:

The objection is answered by a fact the questioner accepts. Before his first creation he was nothing; now he is alive. The One who brought that life into existence can restore it. The same answer is given when decayed bones are used to question bodily resurrection:

Pairing adds the ordered continuation of human life. New human beings come into existence through the condition in which the first were created. The power that originated this formation can bring about its like again (Ibn ʿĀshūr, ʿAṭiyyah Sālim).^[12]

The order of the signs sharpens that answer. Resurrection is the bringing of the dead out of the earth, so the signs begin with the earth; they then turn to the people who will be created again and come out of it. The dwelling and its inhabitants belong to the same argument (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[13]

For the further argument from wisdom and gratitude, and the distinction between resurrection’s possibility and its revealed announcement, see 78:6–7, Q2.^[14]

Conclusion

The most direct meaning of 'We created you in pairs' is male and female (al-Hararī, al-Shawkānī).^[15] However, the broader interpretation also has its proponents: azwāj here are the kinds of people, tall and short, clever and dull, as in “pairs among them” of 20:131 (al-ʿAdawī; Ibn ʿAṭiyyah gives it first). Discussing a similar difference over 20:50, al-Shinqīṭī cites Ibn Taymiyyah's principle that the early scholars' differing explanations represent variety rather than contradiction, meaning the verse encompasses them all. This same principle applies to the early explanations here.^[16]

And Allah knows best.

2. How the Commentators Explain This Verse

Al-Māturīdī: can resemblance establish lineage?

This question follows from the wider human-kinds interpretation, but it does not decide whether male and female is the nearer meaning of “in pairs.”

The colour explanation also led to a legal inference about قِيَافَة, qiyāfah, the assessment of family resemblance by a skilled قَائِف, qāʾif. The hadith of ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها includes Mujazziz’s words about Zayd and Usāmah رضي الله عنهما:

Taking the meaning as colours, which he reports, al-Māturīdī infers that resemblance cannot settle lineage, as Abū Ḥanīfa's school holds; al-Shāfiʿī and most scholars accept the judgment of one skilled in resemblance, because the Prophet ﷺ was pleased when Mujazziz said of Zayd and his son Usāmah, “These feet are from one another”, and the Ḥanafīs answer that he was pleased because it silenced those who doubted Usāmah's lineage (al-Nawawī, Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār).^[2]

ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Khaṭīb (d. after 1390 AH): created opposites and the Creator

Human pairing allows successive generations to inhabit the earth. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Khaṭīb begins with that familiar meaning, then asks us to consider a wider relationship: a created thing does not stand entirely by itself. He extends pairing from male and female to plants, animals and inanimate things, and then to contrasts such as light and darkness, waking and sleep, life and death, truth and falsehood.

His argument involves more than putting two things beside one another. He proposes that opposing things bring one another's powers into activity. Each draws out what was latent in the other, and their interaction produces a force from which something new arises. In human reproduction, the new life is the next generation. He holds that the same is true فِي عَالَمِ الْمَعَانِي أَيْضًا, “in the world of meanings too.”

From these relationships he concludes that nothing created is wholly independent or alone. Oneness belongs exclusively to Allah, the One, the All-Subduing. Al-Khaṭīb thus moves from the immediate male–female meaning of أَزْوَاجًا, azwājan, “in pairs,” to an argument for tawḥīd: created things depend on relationships, whereas the Creator is not one dependent member of a pair.^[3]

Muḥammad al-Hilāl: created pairs and the Creator

Muḥammad al-Hilāl also begins with male and female and the meaning “kinds.” He extends pairing to animals, plants and gases, illustrating it with the positive proton and negative electron of hydrogen. From this he draws a contrast between creation and its Creator: life continues through pairing, while Allah is الواحد الأحد المتفرد بالوحدانية المطلقة, “the One, the Unique, alone in absolute oneness.”^[4]

3. Iʿrāb: Grammatical Analysis

The sentence names the action, its doer and the people created, then describes their paired condition. The baseline analysis is Dār al-Ṣaḥābah's Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm: أَزْوَاجًا (azwājan) is a حَال (ḥāl), a description of the people in their creation.^[1]

Word / Grammar / What it does

The separation of attached elements explains their functions; the verse contains two word occurrences, not five independent words.^[2]

Clause / Position

The coordination connects the signs in one argument. It does not make أَزْوَاجًا a separate clause.^[3]

Where the grammar changes the meaning

A paired condition, or a second object?

The alternatives turn on the sense of “created.” Does it name bringing people into existence, with their condition then described, or does it take the sense of making them something?

The baseline construction means “We created you in a paired condition.” The description follows the interpretation: مُتَجَانِسِينَ مُتَشَابِهِينَ (mutajānisīn mutashābihīn), “alike in kind, resembling one another,” suits corresponding partners; مُخْتَلِفِينَ (mukhtalifīn), “differing,” suits the wider human-kinds explanation (al-ʿUkbarī, Makkī, al-Muntajab al-Hamadhānī). The verb acts on the people, and the ḥāl describes how they were created. Makkī contrasts it with the surrounding جَعَلَ (jaʿala), “made”, clauses: “earth/a bed” and “mountains/pegs” are two-object constructions because the verb has the sense صَيَّرَ (ṣayyara), “made into”. He gives the reason for taking only one object here: خَلَقَ here means ابْتَدَعَ (ibtadaʿa), “brought into existence.” The creation itself is the action; “in pairs” describes the resulting people.^[4]

The alternative is “We made you pairs.” “You” is the first object; “pairs” is a مَفْعُولًا ثَانِيًا (mafʿūlan thāniyan), a second object stating what the people were made. Ibn al-Aḥnaf allows this as well as the ḥāl construction.

Why allow a second object after “created”? The explanation is that خَلَقَ can carry the sense of جَعَلَ (jaʿala), “made” (al-Darrah). The objection begins from a different sense of the verb: if it means bringing into existence, one object names the people created, and their paired condition is a description of them. Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jundī, the muḥaqqiq of al-Bustān, rejects the second object on that one-object ground, following Makkī. The difference is therefore about the verb's sense, not whether the people were created in a paired condition.^[5]

Both explanations retain paired human creation. The English “We created you in pairs” can communicate the result without reproducing the difference in grammatical labels. Al-Jundī favours the one-object analysis. It agrees with Dār al-Ṣaḥābah’s baseline and expresses “in pairs” as the condition of the people created.^[6]

Does the earlier negation deny that Allah created them?

No. The opening أَلَمْ نَجْعَلْ (a-lam najʿal), “Have We not made…?”, seeks acknowledgement of something already done. Its force is “We have indeed made.” The creation clause continues that invitation to acknowledge Allah's works.

There are two ways to connect the clauses. On the first, “Have We not…?” extends to this further sign: خَلَقْنَاكُمْ is joined directly to the earlier verb governed by لَمْ (lam). Al-Ālūsī and Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī give this construction, and al-Hararī presents it too. On the second, “And We created you…” follows the affirmative meaning already established by the question, “We have indeed made.” Al-Ālūsī and Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī explain this connection as well.

The two connections reach the same acknowledgment of Allah's work. In one, the question continues; in the other, the next clause follows what the hearers have been called to acknowledge. Ibn ʿĀshūr makes the interrogative sense explicit as وَأَخَلَقْنَاكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا, “and did We create you in pairs?” The Saheeh International rendering, “And We created you in pairs,” expresses the affirmative force.^[7]

4. Ṣarf: Roots and Morphology

The roots are خ ل ق (kh-l-q) and ز و ج (z-w-j). The joining وَ, the subject pronoun نَا and the object pronoun كُمْ have grammatical functions, but no roots are assigned to them. The table analyses the actual forms in this verse.^[1]

The patterns identify the forms; the lexical discussions below explain why these roots can express the meanings developed in Question 1.^[2]

خ ل ق: creation and measured formation

What does measuring have to do with creating?

Arabic uses خَلَقَ for measuring something before giving it its intended form. A leatherworker measures a hide before cutting it into a waterskin; a tailor measures cloth before cutting. Measuring and cutting are related but different actions. The first determines the form; the second brings the intended work into effect. Al-Zamakhsharī lists Allah’s creation among the figurative extensions of the root: bringing things into existence according to a determination required by wisdom. The lexical example concerns purposeful formation, not a description of Allah working as a human craftsperson.^[3]

Zuhayr's verse makes the distinction visible:

Here تَفْرِي (tafrī) means cutting, while خَلَقْتَ (khalaqta) means measuring or determining. The person praised completes what he has planned. Others determine the work but do not perform it. This witness establishes a use of the root in which determination precedes execution. Al-Rāghib cites the opening as فلأنت rather than ولأنت; both versions retain the same contrast between measuring and cutting.^[4]

Divine creation has a wider meaning than human measuring. Al-Rāghib distinguishes bringing something into existence without pre-existing material or a prior model from creating something from existing material. The first belongs to Allah. The human craft example explains determination; it does not exhaust what creating means when Allah is the subject. Ibn al-Anbārī likewise distinguishes divine origination from a person's measuring work. In this verse the people are reminded of the creation they owe to Allah, not of a plan for their bodies.^[5]

A further distinction concerns what the verbs emphasize. خَلْق (khalq) carries the sense of تَقْدِير (taqdīr), determination; جَعْل (jaʿl) carries the sense of تَضْمِين (taḍmīn), incorporating or placing: making something from something else, bringing it into a condition, or moving it. Ibn al-Munayyir points out that the verbs also overlap in actual usage. Their meanings share ground, while the context determines the emphasis (al-Zamakhsharī, Ibn al-Munayyir).^[6]

Do the linguistic authorities explain the root in the same way?

They share the connection with determination, but their derivations differ. Ibn Fāris identifies two origins: determining something, and smoothness. Measuring a hide belongs to the first; a smooth stone or worn-smooth cloth belongs to the second. He does not reduce both to one account.^[7]

Ḥasan Jabal proposes a more unified relationship: preparing something initially undetermined for an intended form. He brings together measuring leather, preparing a well and smoothing an arrow, then compares successive stages of formation, where one stage prepares for the next. His proposal explains why preparing and shaping recur in this root's uses. Ibn Fāris distinguishes two origins; Jabal seeks a shared relationship among these uses.^[8]

The smoothing sense has its own poetic witness, recorded by al-Jawharī:

The object is an arrow shaft. Khallaqa, the doubled form, means smoothing it. The builder’s line illustrates straightness and evenness. This is evidence for the root’s smoothing use alongside its measuring use; the verb in 78:8 is the undoubled khalaqa.^[9]

ز و ج: partners, pairs and kinds

Is a zawj one member, or the two together?

The central relationship is joining one thing with another. Ibn Fāris describes the root through مُقَارَنَةُ شَيْءٍ لِشَيْءٍ (muqāranat shayʾ li-shayʾ), “the association of one thing with another.” One member can therefore be called a zawj because it has its corresponding partner. A husband is his wife's zawj, and a wife is her husband's zawj; together they are زَوْجَان (zawjān), two partners.^[10]

The individual-member meaning is shared. The further question is whether one zawj can also name the two together.

Al-Azharī favours the individual-member meaning and reports the grammarians' rejection of the broader use; al-Rāghib allows both. Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī explains how the broader use can arise: the name of one member can stand for the whole pair. That explanation accounts for the relationship between the uses without making all the authorities agree.^[11]

A riddle transmitted through al-Azharī tests the broader usage directly:

Her zawj here is a pair of pigeons she owns. Their young explain the riddle: the woman's barrenness does not prevent her birds from breeding. The witness establishes one zawj naming two together, the usage other authorities restrict to zawjān.^[12]

Ḥasan Jabal shows the individual use through 6:143–144. The passage begins ثَمَانِيَةَ أَزْوَاجٍ (thamāniyata azwāj), “eight partners,” then counts them:

The following question names الذَّكَرَيْنِ (al-dhakarayn), “the two males,” and الْأُنْثَيَيْنِ (al-unthayayn), “the two females,” in each set of two animal kinds. Each kind thus has a male and female. Four kinds with two members each make eight individual animals. If each zawj meant a complete pair here, there would instead be sixteen. The stated count establishes the individual-member meaning in this passage.^[13]

This explains why the plural أَزْوَاجًا does not make each person two beings. People are described through their relation to corresponding partners. It also leaves room for “kinds,” where members share a type rather than each being counted as one half of a numerical pair.

How does the word come to mean a kind?

Things associated by resemblance can belong to the same kind. Al-Zamakhsharī explains the أَزْوَاج of plants as classes or colours; Ibn Fāris considers it possible to connect the colour meaning with association: one thing is joined with another of its kind. Al-Aʿshā's verse illustrates the wider use:

Al-Azharī cites زَوْج here for “colour”; the same Lisān passage also defines it as a kind of anything. The verse does not count two cloths. This wider use helps explain the human-kinds interpretation: the word can group people by a shared characteristic, while male–female pairing remains its immediate explanation here.^[14]

Labīd uses the word for a covering on a howdah:

Here zawj names a cloth laid over the howdah. Ibn Fāris relates it to association with what it covers. The uses of the word thus extend beyond counting partners: association can name a corresponding member, a shared kind, or a covering joined to another object.^[15]

Why do the authorities differ over زَوْجَة (zawjah)?

Both husband and wife can be called زَوْج, zawj, while 78:8 uses the plural أَزْوَاجًا, azwājan.^[16]

How does paired creation lead to an argument for tawḥīd?

Al-Rāghib extends the relationship beyond husband and wife when explaining خَلَقَ الْأَزْوَاجَ كُلَّهَا, “created all the pairs” (36:36), and خَلَقْنَا زَوْجَيْنِ, “We created two partners” (51:49). His explanation distinguishes الْمَادَّة وَالصُّورَة (al-māddah wa-l-ṣūrah), “material and form”: what a thing is made from, and the form by which it is that particular thing. He also distinguishes الْجَوْهَر وَالْعَرَض (al-jawhar wa-l-ʿaraḍ), “substance and attribute”: the thing that exists, and a quality present in it. These are two accounts of تَرْكِيب (tarkīb), composition, within created things.^[17]

His inference extends even to a thing with no opposite or similar counterpart. In his account, that thing still combines substance and attribute, so it remains composed. Composition is the reason he regards it as made; what is made requires a Maker. He then distinguishes the Creator from the creation: Allah alone is فَرْد (fard), unique, unlike the paired or composed things He creates. Al-Samīn repeats this argument in his lexical discussion. This philosophical development explains their movement from pairing to tawḥīd; it is different from the male–female explanation and from the physical illustrations considered in the Commentators section.^[18]

The philosophical account follows composition to the need for a Maker. Another approach begins with the Qurʾān’s familiar signs. Al-Ghazālī, quoted in al-Manār, recommends clear consideration of the earth, human life and growing provision for ordinary hearers. He contrasts this with first proving that changing attributes begin, that substances cannot be free of them, and that what begins requires a maker. The familiar signs give the hearer evidence he can recognize before demanding that technical chain of premises.^[19]

The form أَزْوَاجًا thus fits more than one established lexical use. Its immediate setting directs us to human pairing. The wider meanings explain why the commentators also consider human kinds and contrasts, without making every instance of the word a count of exactly two. And Allah knows best.

5. Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

The argument moves from the ground beneath their feet to the people standing upon it. Its force lies not only in what is named, but in how the words make the hearers face their own creation.

From “they” to “you”: الِالْتِفَات (al-iltifāt)

Where it is. The earlier warning says سَيَعْلَمُونَ (sayaʿlamūn), “they will know” (78:4–5). Here the address becomes وَخَلَقْنَاكُمْ (wa-khalaqnākum), “and We created you.”

The plain way. Continuing to speak about them would have given “and We created them.” Instead, those previously spoken about are addressed directly.

What it does. Their questioning is no longer described at a distance. They themselves must answer for the fact of their creation. Ibn ʿĀshūr identifies the immediate addressees as the mushrikūn confronted by the preceding question. Al-Ālūsī calls the change an intensification of الإِلْزَام وَالتَّبْكِيت (al-ilzām wa-l-tabkīt): pressing the argument upon them and rebuking their denial.

The direct address is already implicit in the question of verse 6 and becomes explicit in “We created you” (Ibn ʿĀshūr). The ending كُمْ (-kum) means “you” in the plural. Verse 6 begins without a joining “and” because its fresh question supplies the evidence for what preceded (Ibn ʿĀshūr). Al-Ālūsī also gives an alternative explanation: an understood command to the Prophet ﷺ to ask how they can deny or doubt resurrection after witnessing these signs.^[1]

The effect. The evidence is not only earth and mountains that they can inspect. It includes their own selves. This particular shift belongs to the reading سَيَعْلَمُونَ. Al-Ālūsī compares it with the historically attributed سَتَعْلَمُونَ (sataʿlamūn), “you will know”: if the earlier warning already addresses “you,” there is no change of person at this point.

Why خَلَقْنَا, “We created,” replaces نَجْعَل, “We make”

Where it is. Verse 6 begins أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ الْأَرْضَ مِهَادًا, “Have We not made the earth a resting place?” Verse 8 says وَخَلَقْنَاكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا, “And We created you in pairs.”

The plain way. The same general verb could have been repeated. Instead, the wording distinguishes the earth's appointed condition from the creation of the people themselves.

What it does. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains خَلَقْنَا as especially precise here: the argument concerns bringing their very selves into existence. The change of tense also matters. In أَلَمْ نَجْعَل, نَجْعَل is a فِعْل مُضَارِع (fiʿl muḍāriʿ), the form ordinarily used for present or future action. The particle لَمْ makes it refer to the past; yet its form calls the visible scene back before the mind. People continually see earth and mountains but can overlook their making. خَلَقْنَاكُمْ states their creation with the past form: they did not witness their own coming into existence.^[2]

The effect. The movement is from what they can examine around them to the beginning of their own existence. Familiarity must not make the first evidence invisible; inability to remember one's creation must not erase the second. Both confront the denial of baʿth. The verbs retain overlapping uses elsewhere; the chosen verb here emphasizes the making of the people themselves.

Two blessings in one clause

Where it is. وَخَلَقْنَاكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا: “And We created you in pairs.”

The plain way. Ibn ʿĀshūr expands the construction as وَخَلَقْنَاكُمْ وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا, “And We created you and made you in pairs.”

What it does. The object كُمْ, “you,” establishes their creation; the circumstantial expression أَزْوَاجًا, “in pairs,” establishes the condition in which they were created. The wording gives both meanings without repeating a second verb. Compare “We created spouses for you”: that would foreground the provision of spouses, whereas the actual wording includes the creation of the addressees themselves.^[3]

The effect. Their existence and paired condition are both gifts. Ibn ʿĀshūr connects the latter with companionship, shared enjoyment and cooperation, and with the continuation of human life through procreation. The same arrangement shows qudrah and ḥikmah: the Creator who first brings human beings into existence can recreate them. The concise wording joins gratitude for present blessings to the argument for baʿth.

How pairing leads into sleep, night and day

Al-Ṭībī’s two arrangements of pairs, sleep, night and day, together with the reply quoted from al-Kashf, are explained in 78:9, Balāghah.^[4]

أَزْوَاجًا among the verse endings

Where it is. أَوْتَادًا (awtādan, “pegs”), أَزْوَاجًا (azwājan, “pairs”), سُبَاتًا (subātan) and the following endings through أَلْفَافًا (alfāfan, “entwined”) share a long ā sound when the reciter stops.

The plain way. A prose list need not have such corresponding endings. Here each short statement completes its own meaning while its ending joins the movement of the passage.

What it does. Al-Zuḥaylī includes أَزْوَاجًا in the sequence he labels سَجْعٌ مُرَصَّع (sajʿ muraṣṣaʿ), embellished correspondence of endings. The repeated long vowel is audible, although the preceding consonants are not all identical.^[5]

The effect. The succession is easy to follow and remember: earth, mountains, people, and the conditions and provisions of their lives. Sound unifies the sequence without making its individual signs interchangeable.

6. Qirāʾāt

No verse-specific word variation, فَرْش (farsh), is recorded here for the Ten. Their general principles, أُصُول (uṣūl), affect the pronunciation of وَخَلَقْنَاكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا. The discussion below distinguishes وَصْل (waṣl), continuing the recitation, from وَقْف (waqf), stopping. These differences do not change the meaning “We created you in pairs.”^[1]

Continuing from خَلَقْنَاكُمْ to أَزْوَاجًا

The ending كُمْ contains مِيمُ الْجَمْع (mīm al-jamʿ), the plural mīm. The next word begins with هَمْزَةُ الْقَطْع (hamzat al-qaṭʿ), a hamzah pronounced at the beginning of أَزْوَاجًا. Ibn al-Jazarī's general rule gives the following treatments of that mīm in connected recitation:^[2]

The pronounced wāw is not another word or another pronoun. Both forms address the same people. For Qālūn, the طَرِيق (ṭarīq), the line of transmission through which the reading is received, must be retained. Ibn al-Jazarī gives authorities for each form and for transmitting both, rather than treating every route as interchangeable.

Stopping

At a stop on خَلَقْنَاكُمْ, Ibn al-Jazarī records agreement on leaving the plural mīm still: the connecting wāw is not retained. He rejects extending رَوْم (rawm, sounding part of a vowel) or إِشْمَام (ishmām, indicating a vowel with the lips without sounding it) to this plural mīm by analogy with the pronominal hāʾ. His reason is that the hāʾ already had a vowel before its connection, whereas the plural mīm did not. Adding a connecting vowel in continued recitation does not give the mīm the same stopping rules as that hāʾ.^[3]

At the verse ending, أَزْوَاجًا is stopped upon as أَزْوَاجَا (azwājā). The word is مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), marked with fatḥah, and its تَنْوِين الْفَتْح (tanwīn al-fatḥ, the final an sound) is replaced by an alif. This changes the stopping pronunciation, not the word's grammatical position or its meaning.^[4]

The length of the connecting vowel

When the plural mīm is connected, the pronounced wāw in خَلَقْنَاكُمُو أَزْوَاجًا comes before the hamzah at the beginning of the next word. This is الْمَدُّ الْمُنْفَصِلُ, al-madd al-munfaṣil: a vowel of lengthening and the following hamzah belong to separate words. The length follows the reciter’s transmitted route.^[5]

Three broad levels help distinguish the performances: الْقَصْرُ, qaṣr, retains the vowel’s natural length; التَّوَسُّطُ, tawassuṭ, extends it to an intermediate length; الْإِشْبَاعُ, ishbāʿ, gives the full extension. Qaṣr does not mean removing the connecting vowel.

These are the three broad levels adopted by Ibn al-Jazarī; he also preserves finer differences transmitted by the authorities of recitation. He explains that estimates of length are approximate: the pronunciation received from a teacher governs the performance. The ṣilah and madd rules are recorded separately. A recited performance follows the complete transmitted ṭarīq received from a teacher; Ibn al-Jazarī retains his established paths without mixing them.^[6]

A brief interruption before أَزْوَاجًا

When the mīm remains still, the junction is خَلَقْنَاكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا. Some transmitted routes insert سَكْتٌ, sakt, between that mīm and the hamzah: a brief interruption of the voice without taking a breath. Other routes continue directly. This differs from waqf, stopping to breathe and then resuming. It also differs from extending the connecting wāw: the rule discussed here concerns the still mīm.^[7]

In the performances transmitted through al-Shāṭibiyyah, Khalaf from Ḥamzah may make this brief, breathless pause or continue directly, whereas Khallād from Ḥamzah and Ḥafṣ continue directly at this junction.^[8]

The narrator’s name alone does not settle the performance: the relevant طَرِيقٌ, ṭarīq, or route of transmission, must also be identified. For Ḥamzah, Ibn al-Jazarī prefers sakt after a non-madd consonant while preserving the transmitted routes without it. His preference therefore does not turn sakt into a rule for every route. In this verse, either performance leaves the words and their meaning unchanged: “And We created you in pairs.”

Continuing into verse 9

If the reciter continues from verse 8 into verse 9, the junction is أَزْوَاجًا وَجَعَلْنَا, azwājan wa-jaʿalnā: “in pairs, and We made…” The final تَنْوِينٌ, tanwīn, of أَزْوَاجًا meets the wāw beginning وَجَعَلْنَا. Its n-sound is assimilated into that wāw: إِدْغَامٌ, idghām. For the Ten, this has غُنَّةٌ, ghunnah, a nasal sound, except in Khalaf’s transmission from Ḥamzah, where the assimilation is without ghunnah.^[9]

Khalaf also has his own independent reading among the Ten. The exception just stated belongs to his transmission from Ḥamzah, not to that independent reading. Both performances preserve the same grammatical connection; the difference concerns the nasal sound when the verses are joined.