This entry considers the word sulalah, an 'extract,' used of human origin in Surah al-Mu'minun 23:12 and as-Sajdah 32:8, and the reading that ties it to a single fertilizing cell drawn from millions. The case here rests on a disputed etymology and is presented with caution.
The source text
وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ مِن سُلَـٰلَةٍ مِّن طِينٍ
“And certainly did We create man from an extract of clay.”
Qur'an 23:12 · Saheeh International
ثُمَّ جَعَلَ نَسْلَهُۥ مِن سُلَـٰلَةٍ مِّن مَّآءٍ مَّهِينٍ
“Then He made his posterity out of the extract of a liquid disdained.”
Qur'an 32:8 · Saheeh International
What was understood in the seventh century
Reproduction in the seventh century was understood in terms of the whole seminal emission, or of menstrual blood, not as a minute selected fraction of a fluid. There was no notion that only a tiny component of the ejaculate takes part in conception, and no instrument by which such a component could have been distinguished.
The word sulalah denotes an extract, a portion gently drawn out, or the best or quintessence of a thing. In 32:8 it stands in parallel with 23:12's 'extract of clay,' where the phrase describes the making of the first human from earth. That parallel matters, because it suggests to many readers a general sense of refinement or 'the choicest part' rather than a cellular one, and classical glosses moved in that direction.
The modern correspondence
Spermatozoa were first observed by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the 1670s, using early microscopes, and the sheer number present in seminal fluid was not known before then. Modern accounts hold that of the many millions of spermatozoa in a single emission, one alone fertilizes the ovum, the rest playing no part in the resulting individual.
Commentators read sulalah as this 'extract': the single cell drawn from a great quantity, the quintessence selected from the whole. The correspondence argued here is between the word's sense of a drawn-out portion and the biological fact of one sperm among millions. Supporters add that the term appears twice, in 23:12 and 32:8, and that in 32:8 it governs 'posterity,' which they take to suit the idea of the reproductive contribution being a select fraction rather than the whole. The Britannica entry on the spermatozoon, cited below, provides the background on which this reading draws, though the verse itself names no cell and specifies no number.
Considerations and counterpoints
Skeptics observe that sulalah simply means a drawn-out extract and was traditionally glossed as semen itself, or as the essence of clay or water, with no implication of a single microscopic cell. Mapping it onto 'one sperm among millions' requires modern knowledge to select that meaning from among the word's ordinary senses. The parallel in 32:8 with 'extract of clay,' where no cell is in view, points instead to a figurative sense of refinement, and on this reading the cellular interpretation is read in rather than drawn out.
Credibility rating: Tier 3 · Contested — The 'extract' reading is etymology-dependent and the term is general enough that a precise 'single sperm from millions' meaning is read in rather than stated.