Please describe briefly [Quran 7:172] especially these words "Am I not your Lord?"

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

First of all, we will cite for you – dear questioner – the interpretation of Shaykh As-Sa'di, from his Tafseer, Tayseer Al-Kareem Ar-Rahmaan, of this verse in which Allaah says (what means): {And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Aadam - from their loins - their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], "Am I not your Lord?" They said, "Yes, we have testified." [This] - lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, "Indeed, we were of this unaware."}[Quran 7:172]

As-Sa'di said: "The saying of Allaah, {And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Aadam -from their loins - their descendants}, means that Allaah produced their descendants from their loins and made them reproduce and have children generation after generation, {And} when Allaah brought them out of the wombs of their mothers and loins of their fathers {and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], "Am I not your Lord?"}; meaning that He made them testify to His Lordship by acknowledging what Allaah created in their Fitrah (natural disposition upon which Allaah created mankind), namely that He is their Lord, Creator and King. They said: 'Yes, we testify to that,' as Allaah created His slaves with the ability to acknowledge the true religion of Islam. So, each person is endowed with this Fitrah, but this Fitrah may change because of the corrupt beliefs that it is exposed to; it is for this reason that {They said, "Yes, we have testified." [This] - lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, "Indeed, we were of this unaware."}, i.e. We have questioned you so that you acknowledge what is grounded within you, namely that Allaah is your Lord. This is in order that you will not be able to deny this on the Day of Resurrection and not acknowledge this by claiming that the truth was not established against you by Allaah, or that you did not have knowledge of it. Rather, you are heedless of it and negligent. So, today you have no excuse, and the absolute evidence of Allaah is established against you.

This is also in order that you will not be able to claim that: {“It was only that our fathers associated [others in worship] with Allaah before, and we were but descendants after them.}, so we imitated them and followed them in their falsehood. {Then would You destroy us for what the falsifiers have done?”} In your Fitrah, Allaah has created that which proves that your fathers' ways are false and that the truth is what the Messengers brought. This contradicts what you found your fathers following, and it is better than it. Indeed one may believe what his misguided fathers said and their corrupt ways to be truth, but this is only from his reluctance toward the evidence of Allaah and His signs in the universe and in one's own self. His reluctance and adoption of what the speakers of falsehood said made him prefer falsehood over truth. This is the correct the interpretation of these verses.

It has also been stated: "This is the day when Allaah took the Covenant from the offspring of Aadam when he brought them out of his loin and made them testify against themselves, and they testified (verbally to that. So their testimony is evidence against them that they were wrong for their unbelief and obstinacy in the world and hereafter. However, there is nothing in the verse that indicates this, nor is it appropriate, nor does the wisdom of Allaah entail this; and the facts prove this. Those (who adopt this interpretation) mentioned that this Covenant was made when Allaah took Aadam's offspring out from his back, when they were in a world like atoms, which no one remembers or conceives. So why would Allaah hold something against them that they did not have any knowledge of, and which they did not see and of which there is no trace?

Because the matter is so evident, Allaah says (what means): {And thus do We [explain in] detail the verses} that is to say, We clarify them and make them evident {… and perhaps they will return} to what Allaah had placed in their Fitrah and to their Covenant with Allaah, in order that they would be deterred and stop their evil doings.

So, the saying of Allaah {Am I not your Lord} means that the knowledge that they innately have is evidence against them. Shaykh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said: {And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Aadam - from their loins - their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], "Am I not your Lord?" They said, "Yes, we have testified."}; this verse is clear in that their confession and attestation is of their innate knowledge of Allaah being their Lord. The Prophet said: "Every newborn child is born on the Fitrah.

Some scholars considered this confession to mean that when they were taken from Aadam's loin, Allaah made them speak and testify; but there is no authentic Hadeeth which confirms this and the above verse does not indicate it." [End of quote]

For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 25832.

Allaah Knows best.