At a glance
countedCounts over the Ḥafṣ/Tanzil text with QAC morphology, at root level. The triad figure counts āyāt carrying all three roots س-م-ع, ب-ص-ر and ف-أ-د.
6
āyāt naming hearing, sight and heart together
4
of those six that close on gratitude
0
times the order samʿ → abṣār → afʾida is broken
16
occurrences of fuʾād, the heart-as-faculty
The Qurʾān has no chapter titled the powers of the human being. What it has instead is a habit: it lists what you were given, and then — in the same breath, before the sentence ends — it asks what you did with it. The list and the question are one grammatical unit. In 16:78 the clause runs «and He made for you hearing and sight and hearts» and then, without a pause, «لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ» — that perhaps you would be grateful. Three other āyāt name the same three faculties and close on the flat verdict «little are you grateful». So this page is a ledger. Below is what the Book says you hold. The question the Book attaches to that list is not answered here — but it is asked here, in the text's own words, as the ledger fills.
The verse the whole page rests on
interpreted· quran by quranThe reading — that the faculties are named in order to be accounted for — is the verse's own grammar: the purpose-clause «that perhaps you would be grateful» governs the list.
وَٱللَّهُ أَخْرَجَكُم مِّنۢ بُطُونِ أُمَّهَٰتِكُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ شَيْـًٔا وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَٰرَ وَٱلْأَفْـِٔدَةَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ
And Allah has extracted you from the wombs of your mothers not knowing a thing, and He made for you hearing and vision and intellect that perhaps you would be grateful.
You arrive knowing nothing. The three faculties are issued after that emptiness, and the sentence ends in a purpose: not that you would know, but that you would be grateful. Knowledge is what the equipment gets you; gratitude is what the equipment is for.
The ledger — what you hold
interpreted· quran by quranWhich capacities count as a Qurʾānic 'power' is a curated reading; each row is anchored to the āya that names it. Nothing here is scored or stored — a tick is an acknowledgement, not a mark.
The ledger
0 / 16 acknowledgedTick what is true of you. Not what you are good at — what you have. Every one of these is named in the Qurʾān as something given.
The ledger — tick here too
| Acknowledged | I have this | Where it is named |
|---|---|---|
| I can hearٱلسَّمْع | 16:78 | |
| I can seeٱلْأَبْصَٰر | 90:8 | |
| I can grasp inwardlyٱلْأَفْـِٔدَة | 23:78 | |
| I can put meaning into wordsٱلْبَيَان | 55:4 | |
| I can name and classify thingsٱلْأَسْمَاء | 2:31 | |
| I can learn what I did not knowعَلَّمَ | 96:5 | |
| I can read and write it downٱلْقَلَم | 96:4 | |
| I can reason from evidenceيَعْقِلُون | 22:46 | |
| I can tell right from wrongفُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَىٰهَا | 91:8 | |
| I can chooseفَمَن شَآءَ | 18:29 | |
| I can work toward somethingمَا سَعَىٰ | 53:39 | |
| I can refuse my own impulseوَنَهَى ٱلنَّفْسَ | 79:40 | |
| I can change what is in meيُغَيِّرُوا۟ مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ | 13:11 | |
| I can do physical, competent workٱلْقَوِىُّ ٱلْأَمِين | 28:26 | |
| I can think together with othersشُورَىٰ | 42:38 | |
| I can carry what I am given to carryوُسْعَهَا | 2:286 |
Tick what is true of you. The Qurʾān answers a filled ledger — the first āya opens at 3.
The ledger is not a test and keeps no record — close the page and it is gone. What it reproduces is the Qurʾān's own sentence shape: the faculties are never listed for their own sake. In four of the six āyāt that name hearing, sight and heart together, the list runs straight into the question of thanks. This page can count the faculties. It cannot answer for them.
The six āyāt that name all three — and never change the order
countedAll six āyāt carrying س-م-ع, ب-ص-ر and ف-أ-د, by root, over the Ḥafṣ/Tanzil text. In every one the three words are adjacent and run hearing → sight → heart; 46:26 states the sequence twice, giving seven runs with no exception. What the invariance means is a reading, not a count.
وَٱللَّهُ أَخْرَجَكُم مِّنۢ بُطُونِ أُمَّهَٰتِكُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ شَيْـًٔا وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَٰرَ وَٱلْأَفْـِٔدَةَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ
And Allah has extracted you from the wombs of your mothers not knowing a thing, and He made for you hearing and vision and intellect that perhaps you would be grateful.
Gift. The faculties issued at birth, into total ignorance — closing on that perhaps you would be grateful.
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَنشَأَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَٰرَ وَٱلْأَفْـِٔدَةَ قَلِيلًا مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ
And it is He who produced for you hearing and vision and hearts; little are you grateful.
Reproach. Same three, same order, and the flat verdict: little are you grateful.
ثُمَّ سَوَّىٰهُ وَنَفَخَ فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِهِۦ وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَٰرَ وَٱلْأَفْـِٔدَةَ قَلِيلًا مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ
Then He proportioned him and breathed into him from His [created] soul and made for you hearing and vision and hearts; little are you grateful.
Gift, again. Placed immediately after the breathing of the spirit — the faculties are what the proportioning is for.
قُلْ هُوَ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَنشَأَكُمْ وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَٰرَ وَٱلْأَفْـِٔدَةَ قَلِيلًا مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ
Say, "It is He who has produced you and made for you hearing and vision and hearts; little are you grateful."
Command to say it. The only one framed as «قُلْ» — Say: He produced you and gave you these.
وَلَا تَقْفُ مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِۦ عِلْمٌ إِنَّ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْبَصَرَ وَٱلْفُؤَادَ كُلُّ أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ كَانَ عَنْهُ مَسْـُٔولًا
And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - about all those [one] will be questioned.
Liability. The one āya that turns the list into a docket: hearing, sight and heart — about all those one will be questioned.
وَلَقَدْ مَكَّنَّٰهُمْ فِيمَآ إِن مَّكَّنَّٰكُمْ فِيهِ وَجَعَلْنَا لَهُمْ سَمْعًا وَأَبْصَٰرًا وَأَفْـِٔدَةً فَمَآ أَغْنَىٰ عَنْهُمْ سَمْعُهُمْ وَلَآ أَبْصَٰرُهُمْ وَلَآ أَفْـِٔدَتُهُم مِّن شَىْءٍ إِذْ كَانُوا۟ يَجْحَدُونَ بِـَٔايَٰتِ ٱللَّهِ وَحَاقَ بِهِم مَّا كَانُوا۟ بِهِۦ يَسْتَهْزِءُونَ
And We had certainly established them in such as We have not established you, and We made for them hearing and vision and hearts. But their hearing and vision and hearts availed them not from anything [of the punishment] when they were [continually] rejecting the signs of Allah; and they were enveloped by what they used to ridicule.
Forfeit. A people better equipped than you, given the same three — and «their hearing and their sight and their hearts availed them nothing».
Six āyāt, and between them the entire argument of this page. Two state the gift (16:78, 32:9), two the reproach that follows it (23:78, 67:23), one the liability — about all those one will be questioned 17:36 — and one the forfeit: a civilisation given the identical equipment, of which the Qurʾān says «their hearing and their sight and their hearts availed them nothing» 46:26. Nothing in the six is a claim about capability. The faculties are never praised as impressive. They are entered, every time, as something received and therefore owed.
Where the heart-faculty lives — and it is entirely Makkī
countedWord occurrences per sūrah of ف-أ-د, QAC morphology over the Ḥafṣ/Tanzil text. All 16 fall in sūrahs traditionally classed Makkī. Revelation order is the traditional chronology, not a computed fact.
ف-أ-د16 occurrences · 13 of 114 sūrahs
Counted from the QAC morphology over the Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim (Tanzil) text — hover a bar for the sūrah. The Makkī/Madanī labels and the revelation ordering follow the traditional chronology: an inherited scholarly ordering, not a computed fact.
Every single occurrence of the word fuʾād is Makkī — sixteen out of sixteen. The word for the inward organ that takes a thing in belongs entirely to the period when the Qurʾān is arguing with people who will not take it in. Toggle the chart to revelation order and the run tightens further: the faculty-language clusters where the audience is being asked to look at itself rather than to organise a community. That is a tilt worth stating carefully. The Makkī/Madanī labels are inherited classification, not measurement, and a 16-occurrence root is a small sample. The count is solid; the reason is a reading.
Before you read on
interpreted· quran by quranTest your reading
When the Qurʾān gives the three faculties it always says them in one order: hearing, then sight, then heart. In 7:179 it describes people who have all three and use none of them. What happens to the order there?
The same equipment, two verdicts
interpreted· quran by quranThe Qurʾān stages this contrast itself: the identical three faculties appear on both sides. Which verses belong to which column is a reading.
Received as a debt, and acknowledged. The Qurʾān's word for this is not belief but shukr — and its promise is increase.
Not confiscated — covered. The organs remain; what fails is their use. The Qurʾān never says the equipment was withdrawn.
- «a seal upon their hearts and upon their hearing, and over their sight a veil» 2:7 — the faculties are still there, under a covering.
- Hearts that do not understand, eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear — «they are like cattle; rather, they are more astray» 7:179.
- «it is not the eyes that go blind, but the hearts within the breasts» 22:46 — the failure is relocated inward.
What surrounds the gift in Sūrat al-Naḥl
interpreted· quran by quranReading the rhetorical setting of 16:78 — the verses immediately around it in the muṣḥaf. The sequence is computed; what it is doing is a reading.
Al-Naḥl is the sūrah of niʿma. Before the faculties arrive it has run through cattle, rain, night and day, the sea, the stars, the bee. Each item lands on the same closing move: «signs for a people who reflect». The reader is already deep in an inventory.
«And Allah extracted you from your mothers' wombs knowing nothing — and made for you hearing and sight and hearts, that perhaps you would be grateful» 16:78. The catalogue of external gifts arrives, without transition, at the equipment for perceiving them. You are the last item on the list of things given.
The very next verse asks whether they have not seen the birds suspended in the sky, «held up by none but Allah» 16:79. The faculty is issued and then immediately put to work on the nearest available sign. The sūrah does not pause to admire the gift.
What the Qurʾān attaches to a faculty
interpreted· quran by quranEach outcome is the one the cited āya itself states. Grouping them as a chain is a reading.
A faculty received
It is questioned
17:36«the hearing, the sight and the heart — about all those one will be questioned» 17:36. The faculty is the unit of accountability, not the deed alone.
It can avail nothing
46:26A better-equipped people «their hearing and their sight and their hearts availed them nothing» once they denied the signs 46:26.
Acknowledged, it increases
14:7«If you are grateful, I will surely increase you» 14:7 — the only stated multiplier on this page, and it is attached to thanks, not to talent.
The gain returns to you
31:12«whoever is grateful is grateful for his own self» 31:12 — the benefit of shukr is stated as reflexive.
Four orders of power the text distinguishes
interpreted· quran by quranA curated grouping. The Qurʾān does not present these as a system; each leaf is anchored to an āya that names that capacity.
The receiving faculties — the three that travel as a fixed triad 16:78.
What the Qurʾān says is taught — the verb ʿallama governs each of these.
The powers that make a person answerable rather than merely alive.
Power the Qurʾān places between persons — and the limit it sets on all of it.
What the list never contains
interpreted· quran by quranRun the whole inventory and something is missing. Not one of these powers is power over another person. No verse in the set names dominance, rank, or command as a faculty granted. The Qurʾān's word for what a human is on the earth is khalīfa 2:30, and the term the sūrahs attach to what the human accepted is al-amāna — the Trust that the heavens and mountains declined to carry 33:72. So the honest summary of the whole ledger is not a boast. It is 33:72's own last clause about the one who took it up: «indeed he was unjust and ignorant». The faculties are real, countable, and named as gifts — and the verse that best describes the being who holds them is a warning, not a trophy.
The web these faculties sit in
interpreted· quran by quranAuthored edges. The statistical neighbourhood confirms part of it: ف-أ-د's strongest verse-level companion in the corpus is ش-ك-ر (pmi 3.40), and both sit in the same co-occurrence community as س-م-ع, ب-ص-ر and ع-ق-ل.
Hearing and seeing, and then the fork
interpreted· quran by quranSūrat al-Insān sets the whole matter down in two verses and then stops. First the equipment: «We created the human being from a mingled drop, to try him — and We made him hearing, seeing» 76:2. Then, immediately, the road and the fork: «Indeed We guided him to the way, be he grateful or be he ungrateful» 76:3. Notice what the second verse does not do. It does not say the ungrateful one was given less. The faculties are issued identically on both branches; only the answer differs. Everything on this page above can be counted — six āyāt, one unbroken order, sixteen Makkī occurrences of fuʾād, four closings on thanks. None of it settles which branch of 76:3 anyone is standing on. A ledger can be filled with a finger. What the Book asks of a filled ledger is not something a page can tick for you.