Surah As-Sajdah Ayat 9 (32:9 Quran) With Tafsir

Ala-Maududi

(32:9) then He duly proportioned him,^[15] and breathed into him of His spirit,^[16] and bestowed upon you ears and eyes and hearts.^[17] And yet, little thanks do you give.^[18]

15. “Fashioned him”: developed him from a microscopic organism into a full-fledged human being and perfected him with limbs and other organs of the body.

16. “Spirit” does not merely imply the life because of which a living thing moves, but the essential human characteristic which imbues man with consciousness and thought, discretion and judgment, discernment, and discrimination, by virtue of which he is distinguished from all other earthly creations and becomes possessor of a personality and self and worthy of Allah’s vicegerency. Allah has called this “Spirit” His own either because it belongs to Him alone, and its being attributed to Himself is just like a thing’s being attributed to its master, or because the attributes of knowledge, thought, consciousness, will, judgment, discretion, etc. with which man has been characterized are a reflection to the attributes of Allah. They have not arisen from any combination of matter, but from Allah Himself. Man has received knowledge from Allah’s Knowledge, wisdom from Allah’s Wisdom, and discretion and authority from Allah’s Authority. He has not received these from a source which is without knowledge, without wisdom and without discretion and authority. For further explanation, see (Surah Al-Hijr, ayat 29) note 19.

17. This is a fine way of saying something. Before the mention of “breathing into him of His spirit”, man has been referred to in the third person: “He created him, spread his progeny, shaped him, breathed into him His spirit,” for till then he was not even worthy of being addressed. Then, when the spirit had been breathed into him, he became worthy of the honor and it was said: “He gave you the ears, gave you the eyes, gave you the hearts,” for after having been blessed with the Spirit, man became worthy of being addressed.

The ears and the eyes imply the instruments by which man obtains knowledge. Although the senses of taste and touch and smell are also instruments of obtaining knowledge, hearing and sight are the major and by far the more important senses. Therefore, the Quran has mentioned only these two at different places as the most important gifts of God to man. “The Heart” implies the mind which arranges the information obtained through the senses and draws inferences from it, and selects a possible way of action and decides to follow it.

18. That is, “The wonderful human spirit with such excellent qualities has not been given to you so that you may live like the animals in the world and plan life for yourselves as an animal would. You were given the eyes so that you may see things with insight and not that you should live like the blind people; you were given the ears so that you may hear things with attention and not that you should live like the deaf people; you were given the hearts so that you may understand the reality and adopt the right way in thought and action and not that you should spend all your capabilities for collecting the means of nourishing and sustaining your animality, or that you may devise philosophies and programs of rebellion against your Creator. After having received these invaluable blessings from God, when you adopt polytheism and atheism, when you assume godhead yourself or become servants of other gods, when you lose yourself in sensual pleasure by serving your lusts, you in fact tell your God: “We were not worthy of these blessings: You should have made us a monkey, or a wolf, or an alligator, or a crow, instead of man.”

Ibn-Kathir

The tafsir of Surah Sajdah verse 9 by Ibn Kathir is unavailable here.
Please refer to Surah Sajdah ayat 7 which provides the complete commentary from verse 7 through 9.