Surah 51 49》 We Created You in Pairs

A lot of people make the argument that the Quran says there is only one type of breading however this is all

refuted by reading the tafsir

(And of everything We have created pairs,) meaning, all the created are in pairs, the heaven and earth,

night and day, sun and moon, land and sea, light and darkness, faith and disbelief, death and life,

misery and happiness, Paradise and Fire, in addition to the animals and plants. The statement of Allah the Exalted,

-Source: Tafsir ibn kathir 51:49

What exactly does the tafseer mean that animals and plants were made in pairs?

We look to the meaning of ‘zawj’ and ‘zawjayn’.

Zawj means ‘type’ and Zawjayn means ‘pair of opposite counterparts’; Tafsir At Tabari and Tafsir Qurtubi explain

that from both plants and animals they were created from male and female

The objection that the intersex phenomenon occurs or that animals can have XXY chromosomes or XYY or whatever has

no affect on this ayah, because the verse did not say male and female explicitly, nor does it say that everyone

stringently has either XX or XY chromosomes.

Furthermore when these extra chromosomal varieties do happen to occur within a person, that does not affect their

phenotypic appearance. Moreover they do not possess the ability to form both types of gametes, either, so they do

indeed lean towards one particular end of the biological sex spectrum.

Rosenfield, Kevin A. (2018), “Hermaphrodite”, in Vonk, Jennifer; Shackelford, Todd (eds.), Encyclopedia of Animal

Cognition and Behavior, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 1–2, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_329-1,

ISBN 978-3-319-47829-6, retrieved 27 April 2021

The term “hermaphrodite” has sometimes been used to refer to humans whose biological sex is ambiguous. This usage

has fallen out of favor and in any case was technically incorrect. The essential characteristic of hermaphrodites

is the ability to reproduce as both male and female. No such case has been identified in any human.

So still they only have the ability to have offspring with the opposite biological sex, therefore having no affect

on the verse’s statement.

So by pairs, in Tafseer Tabari he says

Others said: What is meant by pairs is male and female.

The view that is more likely to be correct is the view of Mujahid, which is that for everything that Allah, may He

be blessed and exalted, created, He created a counterpart to it that is different from it in some senses, so that

each is an opposite or counterpart of the other. Hence He said “We have created pairs”. In these words, Allah is

drawing attention to His might and power to create whatever He wills, and that He is not like created beings which

do one type of action and do not do the counterpart thereof, because anything that can do one thing but not the other

– such as fire, which can only

heat and cannot cool, or ice, which can only cool and cannot heat – cannot be described as perfect; rather perfect

and utmost praise is due only to the One Who is able to do all that He wills of things that are different or similar.”

(Tafsir at-Tabari (22/439-440)

The ability of intersex individuals to function as both male and female biologically does not exist. They may have

different chromosomal variations or nuances in their sexual organs, but they can stringently only act biologically

and sexually as either male or female to produce offspring as part of a sexual pair.

Thus the objections to this verse are frivolous.